


Ragnatela Bonus Chapters

by Quieta



Series: Spiderweb [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: 1950s, Abusive Relationships, Alternate Universe - High School, Broken Families, Cheating, Child Abuse, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Children of Characters, Cunnilingus, Domestic Violence, Double Penetration, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Manipulation, F/F, F/M, Fatherhood, Forced Threesome, Genderbending, Lesbian Sex, M/M, Menstrual Sex, Next Generation, Period-Typical Homophobia, Slurs, Smut, Teen Pregnancy, Teen Romance, Torture, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:54:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 17
Words: 53,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25077973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quieta/pseuds/Quieta
Summary: Collection of AUs imported from the Ragnatela tumblr.
Relationships: Leona Borghese/Patience Winslow, Leonardo Borghese/Patience Winslow, Salvatore Mallozzi/Patience Winslow, Silvio Borghese/Patience Winslow
Series: Spiderweb [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1816249
Comments: 50
Kudos: 90





	1. Ode to Aphrodite

**Author's Note:**

> Patience Winslow is a dissatisfied housewife in 1950s New York. Filling in for her journalist husband, she encounters a beautiful mafioso's wife, a glamorous blonde woman who slowly draws her into her web as Patience naively steps deeper and deeper.

"Mike, how can you ask me this? I’ve never given an interview in my life!”

The couple were in the kitchen of their cozy townhouse. The smell of meatloaf wafted through the air as Patience hurried to set their table for dinner—an easy task for a family of two.

Michael buried his head in his hands, elbows on the table. “Please! I need you to! I’ve never had a clash between appointments like this in my life. Both are equally important, but—“

“If they’re both equally important, why are you sending your untrained wife to go do one for you?” she spat acidly as she slid the meatloaf out of the oven.

He waved his papers towards her. “But you’re not untrained, Patience! I talk to you all the time about my job when I’ve come home from work.”

“That’s not the same as actually doing it, Mike!”

“Please, Patience. Both of these could make or break my career. Just go and interview Hofferson, and I’ll go to the journalists’ conference in Chicago. Easy as pie.”

Patience sighed heavily as she took her seat. Her fork lay stiffly beside her plate of spiced brown beef, but she felt no hunger, despite the fact she had been dieting lately. Her belly was churning at the prospect of having to interview a state senator.

“Okay,” she relented. “Only because you’re my husband, and it’s not as if I have much to do around here anyway…” she would never admit that being a housewife was much more work than it appeared. She didn’t want Mike to feel guilty.

He leaped up and planted a kiss on her cheek. “Thank you, Pat! I knew you’d come through for me! I love you!”

Even through her worry she felt a smile coming on. Her lovely bright-eyed husband telling her he loved her was always enough to cheer her up.

***

Hotel Caravaggio was a place she had only driven past and marveled at. The crème de la crème stayed at Caravaggio Hotel. The entrepreneurs, the socialites, the politicians, and the people of less reputable means who nonetheless had amassed enough money to be accepted into the elite. It was a massive stone building with a clock face at the very top, fashioned like a castle with domes, arches and stories upon stories stretching into the sky. Under the archway of the entrance an attendant was checking credentials, and she prayed they would let her through even without her first name on her ticket, but it seemed enough to convince them and they waved her through. She followed the crowd past the lobby into the ballroom.

Patience was wearing her best dress, the dress she had gotten married in. She had not been able to afford a big wedding, so she and Michael had gotten married at the courthouse. It was a swing dress in olive green, falling to flare just below her ankles, with straps holding it above her modest bust. She remembered Michael pale-faced and sweating in his ill-fitting suit, but so handsome with the shine in his eyes when he said his vows. She kept that memory close to her heart.

She nervously noted the jewelry glittering on every woman’s neck and wrists. She wore no jewelry, save for her wedding ring and two gold rings in her ears. Patience had never been one for jewelry, and with her husband as a struggling journalist, she needed it even less.

Patience stayed to the side, sidestepping the ruffles and billowing ballgowns of the party denizens. She peered around for Senator Hofferson, trying to spot his thick black mustache and glasses. She kept stepping on peoples’ shoes, apologizing, and stumbling around. Good grief, was she out of her league.

When Patience spotted him she sighed with relief, rapidly stepping forward. “Excuse me! Sir—Senator Hofferson!”

Senator Hofferson was talking to another journalist, teeth gleaming white under his black mustache. “Excuse me!”

The Senator turned to her, still smiling, but his eyes were slightly disdainful. “Hello, madam. And you are?”

“I’m the journalist here to interview you. Mrs. Sheehan.” She straightened up. “To start out, can I ask you about tax reform in—“

“I’m sorry, I thought I was being interviewed by a _Mr._ Sheehan,” he said, his voice laced with condescension.

Everyone in the crowd was looking at her. Sweat broke out across her forehead. “I—“

“Could he not come? I’m sure we can make some later date. Now if you excuse me, I have another interview I need to get back to.” He ostentatiously turned to the other journalist, leaving her quivering and dowdy in her old dress, dozens of eyes on her. Giggles erupted around her. Patience swung around and began wading to the entrance, tears swimming in her eyes. The embarrassment was burning her face and making her legs weak.

Patience had failed Michael.

As soon as she made it out the door she collapsed in tears. The feeling of all those eyes on her, pricking her, wouldn’t go away. She slid down the stone wall until she was on her haunches, her high heels grinding against the concrete, and cried.

“Are you all right, ma’am?” asked a valet nervously. Patience waved him away. She wanted to stop crying, but the tears wouldn’t stop coming. Her chest was beginning to hurt with the sobs.

“Are you… shall I call a cab?” said someone else.

“Madam? What’s wrong?”

“Did something happen to you?”

“All of you, stop it,” said a sharper, more feminine voice. “Stop asking her questions. She’s distressed. _Dolcezza_ , come here.”

The voice was deep and yet very feminine, with a slight lilt of a foreign accent. It sounded like a flute in her ears. Patience was gently drawn into someone’s arms.

Something flowery hit her nose, a light perfume that smelled like a rose garden. Patience’s face was suddenly nested against someone’s smooth nape. “Sweetheart, sweetheart. Tell me what’s wrong.

Patience sniffled. “Nothing. I’m sorry…”

“You can tell me. Go on, shoo! Let us be!” the woman reprimanded the rest of the crowd, who drifted away. Patience watched them leave from over the woman’s shoulder, amazed even through her tears that they obeyed so suddenly and quickly.

“It was just… I wanted to interview someone, and he told me he didn’t want to… it’s nothing, really, I’m so, so sorry…” She hitched another humiliated sob, her tears staining the woman’s porcelain skin as she separated.

She was very tall and statuesque. With her stunning good looks, patience wondered if she were a model or singer. She towered over Patience, wearing a glittering white evening gown with a feather boa hanging low on her arms. The dress was cut low, revealing several too many inches of bust. The dress was also slit up the side, revealing the edge of black lace pantyhose. She didn’t know what was making her jaw drop more, the beauty of the woman or the sheer audacity of her clothes.

Sparkling red heels gave the woman an extra lift, and clicked as she stepped back to look at her, even though her strong hands still stayed on her shoulders, squeezing her gently.

The woman was so beautiful she nearly took her breath away. Long curls the color of dark gold tumbled down her back and down to brush the tops of her breasts. Her face was what Patience always imagined a goddess’s to be like; high cheekbones, light, arching eyebrows, and skin as smooth and unblemished as a statue. Her nose was elegantly curved, giving her a regal Cleopatra air. Her mouth as red as a drop of blood, the top daintily arched in a cupid’s bow. And her eyes…

Patience noticed she was staring, and looked down. “I’ll—I’ll call a taxi, I’m awfully sorry to bother you, Madam—“

“Bianconi,” offered the woman easily. “Nee Borghese. And don’t apologize. We women have to stick up for each here. Oh, no, honey, I can’t leave you to go home looking like that! All puffy and sad. Come up to my hotel room. We’ll get a few drinks and I’ll make you look so much prettier.”

***

Patience stayed perfectly still as Mrs. Bianconi carefully applied two lines of dark eyeshadow to her lids. She wanted desperately to blink, to itch and scrunch her face, but she didn’t want to disappoint her and ruin the meticulous makeup Mrs. Bianconi had spent the last half hour applying.

The bathroom, like her hotel room, was opulent, Fluffy towels hung over marble baths and walls, and the bathtub was large enough to fit four people in. The bathtub was bigger than her whole closet!

The lights above were crystal, fashioned in the shape of a flower, and they threw Mrs. Bianconi’s face into half-shadow as she leaned back. “There,” she said finally, capping the eyeshadow tube. “You look _so much_ more beautiful now.”

Almost apprehensively, Patience slowly turned to the mirror. It was like looking at a different person. Her red eyes, her tears were gone. The lines of the rouge, the mascara, the powder, made her soft, round features sharper, and the stark lines of eyeliner made her face stand out like an Egyptian goddess. Her lips were lined with dark velvet lipstick, and her eyeshadow tilted up at the edge in a fierce curve. She looked like a Bond woman. A femme fatale. She felt strong.

“The darkness of the eyeshadow brings out the green in your eyes,” said Mrs. Bianconi softly. “It makes them so vivid. You have beautiful eyes. Like emeralds.”

Patience shyly looked up at her. She was so elegant and graceful, one leg crossed over the other and her shoulders straight and proud.

“Come downstairs,” Mrs. Bianconi said, pulling her up. “We’ll dance. You’ll have so much fun.”

“No!” Patience shook her head furiously. The humiliation was still there, biting into her mind, and she didn’t even want to imagine going downstairs again and feeling all those eyes boring into her.

“All right,” Mrs. Bianconi said reassuringly, her arms trailing comfortingly down her arms. Her touch was nice. Soft, Gentle. Her long nails ran down her skin reassuringly. “You know what? We can have a party in here, just the two of us.”

“Won’t people miss you?” she blurted.

Mrs. Bianconi laughed a regal laugh. “Let them. A queen always has to be fashionably late, doesn’t she?” 

The radio was on, _Love Me Tender_ playing in Elvis’s sultry voice. Mrs. Bianconi took her hand gently in hers and pulled her up.

Patience didn’t know how to dance. The closest she had come was her disastrous prom with Hank Yancy, who was on the bottom of the totem pole in school and who had _still_ abandoned her out of embarrassment halfway through the prom.

And now Patience was dancing with a gorgeous woman who looked at her with eyes so attentive and beautiful she felt like she was the only person in the world. Eyes that were the color of deep night, of a Van Gogh painting with their swirls of midnight blue.

_Love me tender, love me sweet_

_Never let me go_

_You have made my life complete_

_And I love you so…_

Patience felt guilty, like she was unworthy of dancing with this beautiful woman. Why had this goddess deigned to bother with her? She was so beautiful, she would have men falling at her feet an day of the week. Why concern herself with a dowdy housewife who had cried and embarrassed herself in front of everybody?

Mrs. Bianconi led her gently, one step after another, their bodies pressed against each other. She was so warm, her scent so nice, her filmy dress glimmering with a thousand crystals. Her voice was husky as she purred into her ear. “What’s your name, _dolcezza?”_

“Patience,” she managed. “Patience Sheehan.”

“Irish, hm?”

“No. Just married to one.”

The woman’s lips curved into a red smile. “My name is Leona, Leona Bianconi. But call me Leona. Or Leonella.”

***

Michael had exhibited his typical behavior upon learning she hadn’t been able to do the interview: he had blamed her, then himself. Ironically, him blaming himself had caused her more guilt. He had shut himself in his room and she had busied herself as a housewife should, but her guilt still seeped into her.

It was his job and she should have done better She should have pursued Hofferson. She should have embarrassed HIM. Instead she had limped out and cried to herself, and only let herself be cheered up by another woman who had taken pity on her.

Patience remembered the number in her pocket. That night, when Michael was on the couch and she was not looking forward to sleeping in a cold, dark room, she called her.

 _“Pronto?”_ said a thick, purring Italian accent.

“Hello… um, this is Patience. You gave me your number, so I—“ she looked at her nails.

“Oh! _Pazienza!_ I was waiting for you to call me! I was thinking of you all night. I have a opportunity for you. A very special one! No, I won’t tell you, you must come first. Please, come tomorrow. Come to 1720 Fontaine street—we’re in the show business district, you know, by the big brick theater.” _Oh my god_. The show business district. “Come tomorrow. I’ll look forward to seeing you, _dolcezza.”_

A long time afterwards Patience kept lingering on that word. _Dolcezza_. The faint accent that lingered on the tip of her tongue, the way her lips kissed her name, her long, dark eyelashes and her eyes the color of the deep sea.

***

“Bye, honey.”

“Bye, Mike.” Patience bestowed a kiss on his nose, and wagged her fingers at him as she left. She drove through the suburbs, past the shops, and eventually through the sparkling high-rises of downtown Garland City. She got caught in a traffic jam in the show business district and inched past the glowing neon lights of the Garland City Theater. She began to feel shy. She debated heading back.

The feeling grew even more as she entered a gated community filled with enormous houses three or more stories, made of stone, brick, wood, some painted like a rainbow and some dull, some with gaudy, elaborate decorations on the outside and some with slightly fewer gaudy, elaborate decorations on the outside.

With one eye on the ragged piece of paper in her hand, she drove until she came into sight of a house far larger than any of the impressive ones on the street. Stone walls surrounded the property, and she could see fruit tees poking their heads over the top.

It looked like a cathedral, it was so big—the main frame stood tall and proud, made of unblemished stone with stained glass set into the top. Underneath were tall stone columns buried in the earth. Beside it were shorter flat buildings spanning the grounds, gargoyles arching their heads above them. Their arching windows, doors, the thick stone chimneys and the dark, spiraling turrets set into the tops gave off a gloomy air, but when she saw the blonde figure standing in the driveway, wearing a fur-lined dress and rabbit muff, her heart leaped again. “Mr. Bian—Leona!”

Leona greeted her with a kiss on both cheeks. _“Dolcezza,_ how lovely it is that you made it!”

“It wasn’t much of a chore. Your mansion is, like, twice the size of the other ones.”

“Oh, that’s all Tommy. When we bought it, it just _had_ to be bigger and better than all of the other ones. It’s a man thing, you know. Overcompensating.” She winked.

Rubbing the red lipstick off her cheeks, Patience followed her inside. In the kitchen, a broad man with a bulbous nose like a potato was putting a coat on and fumbling for key. “Gotta go, hun. Got a sudden call from Jim O’Toole. Union business. Is that your friend?” he smiled at Patience. “Jesus crackers, aren’t you a cute thing! Don’t go getting into trouble now, the two of you.”

He slapped Leona’s bottom on the way out, and her pleasantly smiling face dropped for a moment, something close to a dark, venomous look replacing it, before the smile went up again.

“Come with me, _Pazienza._ I’ll show you around.”

***

“This is the living room—well, one of them. The chimney is three hundred years old—we had it shipped from James Madison’s summer home in Virginia. I bought the silk brocade curtains at an auction in Vienna; they’re the same ones that hung in the opera house where Mozart debuted many of his operas…”

Patience was transfixed at Leona’s explanations. She was almost too afraid to touch anything—like a museum, the splendor and opulence of her surroundings overwhelmed her. “My goodness! It must have cost a fortune!”

“Tommy is very influential in the unions. And I, of course, have a highly successful fashion line. My next exhibition is in Paris this March.”

“Wow,” she said. Patience had the feeling she would be saying that a lot. Something crinkled in her pocket. “Oh! Before I forget.” She pulled out a small red box with a bow glued on the front and handed it over to Leona. “Here… for you.” Embarrassment colored her cheeks. “I know it’s probably a lot worse than what you’re used to…”

“Oh, how sweet of you!” Leona plucked the bow off and opened it, poppin a chocolate into her mouth. “You shouldn’t have! I’ve been watching my weight lately, but I can’t resist chocolates…”

“I don’t know why you’d have to,” murmured Patience, watching her figure beneath her dress. Leona wasn’t like Patience, who had the figure of a stick. She was thick-hipped and large-breasted, curvy in the places it mattered.

“These are sublime, I love pralines. Where did you get them?”

“W-W-Woolworths,” she muttered, blushing deeper. Leona paused, then smiled wider. She pinched her cheek with her long fingernails. “You are just so precious when you’re embarrassed! Come with me, I’ll give you the grand tour. Just wait until you see the indoor swimming pool.”

***

“And here is my bedroom. I modeled it after Marie Antoinette’s personal chamber in Versailles—I have French blood, you see.”

“Wow!” said Patience, and this time she really did mean it. Her bedroom was done in gold and silver with floral motifs on the walls and bedcovers. A silken canopy covered the top of her bed, falling in a silver waterfall down to the floor. A floor-length mirror, edged in gold, took up the far wall.

“It’s so, so… I mean… it’s…the most beautiful room I’ve ever seen.”

“I’ve been thinking of redecorating,” Leona said dismissively as she closed the door. “Now, my darling, surely you must know you’re not just here to look at my house.”

“Yes!” Patience remembered their conversation on the phone. “You said you had an opportunity you wanted to offer me?”

“Indeed.” She locked the door with a click. “Now, as you know, I am a fashion designer. And the moment I saw you, I knew immediately what I wanted with you.”

She went over to her closet (which was approximately the size of the bedroom Patience shared with Michael) and pulled out a leather suitcase. “You see, I’ve been looking to branch out. You know, obtain some success beyond the catwalk. And for that I need more than the usual tall, slinky models. I need people of all shapes and sizes. And you, my love, have a tiny, skinny frame that’s just right for the line of lingerie that I hope to market.”

“L-Lingerie?” Patience stared in disbelief as Leona pulled a pair of panties and a bra out of her suitcase, so skinny and translucent they might have been pieces of tissue.

“Yes! Would you like to model for me? I need a real-life model so I can accurately develop these designs. It’s one thing to draw out the designs and sew them, but I need to make sure they fit perfectly before I send them for a test run.”

“I…I…” Patience felt like a rabbit trapped in the corner. She didn’t want to model. She’d always been self-conscious. And that bra! It looked like the size of a napkin!

But Leona had been awfully nice to her. And the way she was standing there, staring at her expectantly with baby-blue eyes under her long dark eyelashes, made her refusal die in her throat. “I… okay. All right. I’ll do it for you.” _Just this once,_ Patience promised herself.

The girl took the lingerie and looked around. “Is there a bathroom here?”

Leona was sitting on an ottoman, legs crossed over one another. “Why? We’re both women, what does it matter?”

Her voice felt like silk sliding over her skin. Patience looked down at the articles of clothing. “I… all right.”

She turned her back to Leona and unbuttoned her coat. Then she took off her white blouse, folded it slowly, and put it down beside her. Next came her pantyhose, sliding down her legs, and she hesitated before she pulled down her skirt. Now she was only in her thick-cupped bra and white panties. Patience felt ashamed, suddenly, at her plain white underwear, and wondered what kind of underwear Leona wore. Probably something red and velvet, to make that fat man she called her husband happy.

Patience undressed fully and crouched down to slide on the panties. She could feel Leona’s eyes boring into her, silently taking in each inch of skin. Against her own will, her eyes traveled to the mirror. In the refection she saw Leona on the ottoman, staring with an unreadable expression on her face, slowly lifting a chocolate to her mouth with the tips of her nails. A strand of caramel fell across the older woman’s lip, and her tongue went to leisurely lick it off. When her eyes flicked to hers in the mirror, Patience looked away hurriedly and busied herself with fastening the bra.

When she got it fastened and turned around, Leona was as smiling and lively as she had always been. “Come on, turn around again! Let’s get a good look at you. Take a look at yourself in the mirror. Oh, my darling, you look like a feast.”

It was true. She did.

Perhaps it was because Patience never had a sense of fashion—and her mother had a fashion sense that was consistently two decades out of date—but she was not used to wearing things that fit her well, or were fashionable, and _especially_ werenot sexy. But this… it looked amazing. The purple cups gave her breasts a subtle lift, making them seem fuller than they actually were. The panties were high-waisted, made of silk so thin she could almost see the texture of her skin through it. The cut of them was generous and made her legs seem long and sleek.

“It looks lovely,” Patience said, grinning broadly as she turned to Leona. Her smile vanished when she saw the older woman frowning, her pretty face creasing. “What’s wrong?”

“It needs adjusting.” Leona stepped up to Patience and took her by the shoulders. Patience obeyed her unquestioningly as she was firmly turned to face the mirror.

Leona’s hands slid under the waistband of her panties, testing the looseness. A shiver crept down Patience’s neck as they slid farther, down her thigh. The gentle curve of her nails, the softness of her palm, the feeling of her breath on her neck… all of it made her lower belly start to fragment.

Patience looked up at the mirror. Leona was pressed so close to her, there was barely an inch of space between them. The heaviness of her breasts pressed against her shoulderblades.

Leona’s other hand went under her bra, slowly tracing the underside of her breast with the soft bad of her finger. Patience stifled a gasp. Leona’s flowery perfume was heady. She felt like she was getting drunk on it. Something wet began to seep into her panties, staining the silk dark.

When Leona pulled away, Patience wanted to collapse. The blonde woman was taking out a silver needle and a spool of purple thread and kneeling in front of her. “It’s too loose at the waistband. Stay very still for me, _dolcezza_ , or else you might get pricked.”

Patience didn’t move a muscle as the needle began darting into the purple fabric. All she could hear was the older woman’s breath, coming in soft in the quiet room.

“My father was a tailor, you know,” Leona said quietly as she darned the fabric. “From Sicily. He taught me all I knew.”

“A tailor?” Leona seemed as if opulence and grandeur came to her naturally. The thought that her father had been just a Sicilian tailor—the thought that she might have been raised poor—

Leona pulled the needle forward, closing the stitch. She leaned forward until her breath brushed the top of her thighs. Her mouth sealed onto her skin in a kiss a she bit into the thead in order to break it, just below the dip between her thighs that led to her secret passage. Leona’s tongue flicked out and brushed a fraction of inch away from her center, and an overwhelming wash of pleasure, centered between her legs, came over Patience as the kiss deepened.

Then Leona pulled away, neatly nipping the thread in two with her teeth. “There. All done. The adjustments are finished.”

Patience was shaky-legged, and wanted to collapse onto the bed. Instead she began gathering her clothes. “Thank you for showing me around, Mrs. Bianconi, now I really must be going—“

“Oh, nonsense. You _must_ stay for dinner. We’re having a traditional Italian dish, stuffed squid—“

Things with tentacles made Patience’s belly churn. “No, I’m sorry, my husband is expecting me back.”

Leona was quiet. “Oh.” Then, “Well, I certainly hope I haven’t made you feel awkward.”

“Not at all!” said Patience, panicking. Leona had been such a good host, and such a respectful seamstress. “I just need to get back soon, put the roast in, et cetera. I will see you again, I promise!”

Patience left in a hurry, slamming her car door after her. When she looked in the rearview mirror, Leona was leaning against the doorway, staring silently with a smile playing on her lips. Patience smiled back at her and waved, and Leona lifted one elegant hand back.

***

Patience didn’t know why she was feeling this way. Like she had just been on a rollercoaster. Her cheeks were flushed and her heart was thudding. She was distracted all day. She burned the roast and snapped at Michael when he moaned about it. Feeling bad for him, she let Michael climb on top of her that night.

Was this just true, pure friendship? Did she genuinely want to be friends with this wonderful woman? Patience had never been close friends with another woman, and even during college had been the odd one out in her dormitory. Now that this beautiful, elegant, kind woman was paying attention to her, and her alone, her head was in the sky and she didn’t know how to react.

Patience looked at the ceiling, memorizing every crack in the plaster as Michael gasped and humped away. She had never enjoyed lovemaking, although she loved Michael, and this night she felt particularly unsatisfied for some reason. When he spent himself and rolled onto his back, she turned to face him. “Michael?”

He brushed a lock of hair away from her face. “What is it, hun?” he stared at her with bare adoration.

“Can you…” she had been married for years, but felt embarrassed to say it. “Can you.., put your mouth on me? Between my legs?”

Michael looked shocked. “Why? Why would I do that?”

“I… nothing.” She turned over to face the wall.

Michael tried to cajole her to cuddle, but she wasn’t in the mood and he left for the living room. She heard him switch on the radio to baseball. She lay in bed, listening to the commentator breathlessly narrate the match, acutely aware of the throbbing between her legs

***

A week later the phone rung and Patience answered it with a terse “Sheehan household, who’s speaking?”

The voice that sounded from the other end made her heart soar. _“Pazienza?_ Is that you, darling?”

“Yes! Yes!” Patience hoped her enthusiasm didn’t come through to the other end. The last week she had been tormented with thoughts that she would never hear from Leona again. It bothered her more than she thought it would. “It’s me! How have you been, Leona?”

“I’ve been lovely, _dolcezza._ The reason I call is because I hear Trenton Island is having a fair today. It is such a lovely day, and I have no one to spend it with. Would you like to come with me?”

If Patience had been in a less excited state of mind she would have wondered why someone as beautiful and popular as Leona didn’t have anyone to spend a day out with, but she was so eager to see her again it barely warranted a thought. “Yes, of course! Shall I meet you there?”

“How about in front of the boardwalk?”

“Yes! I’ll see you soon!” Patience hung up and walked to her closet, debating her meager selection of clothes. Her green wedding swing dress was the only item of value she had, stuffed in the back of her moth-eaten closet, and it needed ironing. Eventually she picked two items of clothing she had owned in high school, a pair of denim shorts and a low-cut, puffy-sleeved polka dot top. She put on a pair of sunglasses to keep the sun out of her eyes and borrowed Michael’s car, driving toward the crowds of Trenton Island.

***

Patience recognized Leona immediately. She was wearing a long, brown fur coat, made of gray-tipped mink, standing tall and regal on the dirty sand in front of the boardwalk. Patience ran into her arms, and Leona squeezed her tightly before letting her go. Leona wore a pearl necklace and matching earrings, and her lipstick was bright red. “Shall we go?”

Patience nodded vigorously and took her outstretched hand, and they made their way through the fair.

Leona bought them thick sticks of pink cotton candy, and they got in line for the Ferris Wheel. While they were in line they got to talking. As was their luck they got stuck at the very top of the Ferris Wheel, and as Leona peaceably munched her cotton candy and looked out at the glittering sea, Patience clutched her arm in fright, trying not to look down and blabbering to keep her mind off the height.

Patience told her about being raised in a small Massachusetts town named Greenhaven, and how her father was a constable who always seemed to be absent from their family. She told her about graduating high school and moving to Garland City to pursue secretary school and escape from the suffocating environment of her small town. She talked about how she had met Michael at the journalism firm they both worked at. They hit it off and married almost a month later. She had quit her job to take care of the household and children, but the children never came.

They went on the teacup rides. Patience became more intimate. She told Leona how unfulfilled she felt as a housewife, watching the house all day, doing her nails while keeping an eye on the TV. The crib they had bought for their children gathered dust in the attic.

And through it all Leona listened, eyes big and blue and so understanding.

The teacup ride had made Patience dizzy and made her want to hork up her pink cotton candy. So they went walking through the crowds, looking at the cattle shows, the dressage competitions.

A circle of men and women surrounded a bare patch of field were two men in boxing gloves swing at each other. There was blood on the grass and blood on their faces. Leona stopped to look, and something in her eye gleamed as she watched them. The men and women were hurriedly placing bets, their faces shining with sweat. Patience didn’t like seeing people hurt, so she tried to pull her away, but Leona stood her ground

The man swung and the other man staggered back a few steps, glaring out from the rapidly- swelling ridge of black tissue above his eyes. He stepped forward and slammed his glove into the other man’s midriff, to gasps by the crowd, and the other man finally went down.

The man spat out the piece of foam he had in his mouth and raised his boxing gloves above his head. The crowd erupted in cheers. The boxer staggered toward the rim of the ring, and his unfocused eyes caught Leona. “Kiss from the lady, for a match well fought?” he slurred. Leona smiled, her perfect red lips rising in a gentle curve.

Patience suddenly found herself frightened. And the fright was mixed with a sort of protectiveness. The thought of his clumsy, drool-slicked lips pressing against Leona’s perfect ones horrified her. And as the boxer leaned forward to kiss her, she leaped into action.

“I’ll give her your kiss!” she explained, and kissed him squarely on his bloody lips. Then she turned and kissed Leona on her cheek.

The crowd paused, as if in shock. Then after a silence, they erupted into laughter. Even the winning boxer let out a few guffaws.

Patience pulled Leona away from the boxing ring. Now the sun was beginning to set, painting the far horizon with red and orange streaks that reflected off the iron-gray sea. The sea air smelled fresh, mixed with the smell of grease and hot dogs and popcorn.

“You’re a quirky little thing,” said Leona. “And a quick thinker, too. You leaped right into action.”

Patience huffed. “He was going to hurt you.”

“You didn’t need to. I’m used to taking care of myself.”

Leona squeezed her hand comfortingly. They walked along the beach, listening to the toot-toot of the carnival music. They took off their shoes and let the waves wash over their feet. The grit of the sand felt good between her toes.

“Look. This one’s pretty.” Patience picked up an oval seashell, stained with cream and rusty red. She held up to the sky. “Looks like the sunset.”

“This one’s prettier.” Leona was holding up a green limpet, rimmed with pattern like black lace. She held it up beside Patience’s face. “It’s as green as your eyes. And beautiful—like your eyes as well.”

Patience looked into her smiling face and wondered if she would ever feel the same sense of wonder and adoration again. Leona gave her the seashell, and Patience put it securely deep down in her pocket.

They chased the waves and snatched seashells from the surf, the girl in her shorts and polka-dot shirt, and the rich woman in her fur coat. They laughed and compared shells, barnacled rocks, and pieces of glass worn smooth by the surf. And finally, when they were exhausted, they sat by the dock and watched the sun disappear below the horizon.

Patience became aware of her hand in Leona’s. Leona’s hand was soft and warm. She looked at the older woman and smiled, and the older woman smiled back, her blonde curls brushing her collar as she lifted her head to look at her.

“Are you my friend?” Patience asked her, a little timidly.

Leona smiled back. “No.” and just as Patience’s heart began to plummet, said, “I’m your _best_ friend.”

Then Leona leaned forward and kissed her. Her lips pressed against hers, pursed in an O, and then her tongue slid against hers, just once. When they separated Patience’s chest was rapidly rising and falling and her eyelashes were half-lidding her eyes. She looked up at the tall woman, with her gentle smile and her fur coat and blue eyes and the red of the sunset behind her, and the feeling she had in her heart had to be the purest of friendship, because she thought it had to have been more passionate, more true, and more warm than anything she had ever experienced.

***

When Patience got home, Michael was angry.

He was rarely angry, but lately he seemed on edge and had lost his temper more than once. When she came in through the front door, lips stained with lipstick and pink cotton candy, he began yelling.

“Where the hell have you been? Why haven’t you called me? Were you with another man?”

“No! I was out at the fair with Mrs. Bianconi!”

“Why do I doubt that? Why do I think you made this ‘Mrs Bianconi’ up? Why have you been so absent lately? So irritated at me? I _know_ you’re seeing another man!”

Michael’s eyes were full of tears behind his glasses and his voice was hoarse and sobbing, and he took a magazine from the end table and hauled it at her. The pages fluttered like the wings of a bird in the air before it landed at her feet.

Patience ran forward and took him in her arms. “I’ll introduce you, I promise! I really was out with a friend! I’m just… I’m sorry I didn’t tell you!”

Michael was crying again, his whole body limp, and she felt overwhelming shame at having been out cavorting with a female friend instead of taking care of the needs of her husband. “Go lie down,” she said. “I’ll make you chicken soup.”

“No. I have the night shift, remember?”

Patience could do nothing but helplessly watch as Michael dressed and packed his papers in his carpetbag, eyes red and puffy behind his glasses. “I love you,” she told him desperately as he left.

Michael paused, and she could feel the _I love you too_ in his stance, raw and honest. But he said nothing, and without a word closed the front door after him.

***

Patience ignored calls for the next few weeks. She focused on the house and her husband. She settled herself into gentle domestic tedium. Michael got a promotion to deputy editor, and she was happy for him—if he got a raise, maybe they could move into a better house, perhaps on the east side of Garland. If he ever got promoted to Chief Editor, they could even possibly move to Terracina Heights, maybe into a nice bungalow overlooking the bay. And by then they would have children, maybe two or three, one for each bedroom. Unbidden she thought of sitting by the sea, and Leona’s soft hand in hers

Patience got a call a few weeks later. She was ironing Michael’s suit as her husband sat, watching the game on TV and keeping half an eye on the paper. The phone rang a few times, and Michael turned to look at her quizzically, and she finally picked it up

“Hello?”

_“Dolcezza?”_

Patience considered hanging up there and then, but she couldn’t deny the thrill that went through her body. “Oh… hello.”

“Have you been busy these past few weeks?”

“Yes. Michael just a promotion.”

 _“Complimenti!_ Give him my congratulations!”

“I will,” Patience promised, desperately wanting her to keep on the phone, and yet wanting her to hang up and leave her life forever.

_“There’s going to be a party at the Garland City Opera House. We’re holding a celebration for the debut of my fashion line in France.”_

“Oh. How… nice.”

_“I wanted to know if you would come.”_

Patience swallowed hard, keeping her gaze on the back of Michael’s head. She knew she needed to stay with her husband, help and support him through his promotion, and focus all her attentions on him. But…

“I’ll… I’ll think about it.”

Leona paused, then her voice became intimate. “It’s up to you. But I would love it if you were able to come, _dolcezza_.”

“Who was it?” said Michael after she hung up.

“Just my mom,” said Patience.

***

Patience’s insides were writhing. She wanted to be there for her husband, but Leona’s face, her voice, her touch, was in her head and wasn’t going away. She found herself browsing dresses while going out for bread and milk, wondering how each one would look on her, imagining herself dancing at Leona’s ball.

Patience rolled the bread dough out, covered with flour up to her elbows. She could smell the smoke of Michael’s pipe, and it reminded her of her father. “Michael?” she said.

“What is it, hun?”

“Nothing,” she said and kept rolling.

That night she tossed and turned, knowing it was one more day until she could make her decision. Michael slept soundly. He had always been a deep sleeper, no matter how stressed he was.

That morning dawned bright and early, and Michael was polishing his shoes for his brand new day as Deputy Editor. His ironed suit was hanging up in the closet, dry-cleaned and fresh.

Patience watched the news, her legs drawn up under her. The mayor, Gerald Nizzola, was calling for more stringent sentencing for criminals. “Mike?” she said.

“Yeah?”

“I got a call a couple days ago. It was Mrs. Bianconi.”

She heard him falter in his polishing. “Oh… all right.”

“And she… she invited me to a party. I wanted to know if I could go.”

Patience heard him stop altogether. Cringing inwardly, she hunched her shoulders as he walked over.

He paused where he was, then let out a sigh. Then he pressed a kiss softly to her hair. “Of course, honey. Go and have fun.”

Patience brightened up. “Thank you, Mike!”

Michael smiled down at her. “Hey. I just got promoted. It can’t just be me having a good time. You have the time of your life, Pat. Promise me?”

Patience looked up at him with glimmering eyes. “I will. I promise. I love you, Mike!”

***

Patience took out her olive green velvet swing dress and elbow-length gloves. She looked at herself in the mirror, turning this way and that. She had ironed it as best she could, it was old, and there were crumples at the edge of her sleeves and waist. The skirt fabric was too stiff. But she looked nice enough in it. She hoped not many people would stare.

Leona was nice enough to send a limousine, an actual limousine, and she felt self-conscious when she got in and closed the door behind her. On their suburban street, the limousine was too sleek, too fancy, outshining the station wagons and family sedans.

Patience adjusted her gloves and smoothed the dress over her knees. She checked herself in the rearview mirror, making sure no stray strands of hair escaped from her bun.

The Garland City Opera House parking was filled up for three streets over, but the limousine cut through the crowds and cars as easily as a hot knife through butter. Patience was dropped off in front of the vast, magnificent Opera House. The sandstone building, with its Spanish-style architecture, was gorgeous and lit with a thousand lights that glimmered so tall she didn’t know whether she was seeing the stars or the lights themselves.

Everyone was wearing chic evening dresses and tuxedos, a rainbow of silk and fur and glimmering jewelry. Keeping an eye out for Leona, Patience tried to slip through the door, but the doorman caught her elbow in his arm. “Mrs. Sheehan? Mrs. Bianconi wants you to come into the back. She has something for you.”

When Patience arrived in the back of the dressing rooms, a valet was waiting with a pearl-pink dress. “Mrs. Bianconi wants you to wear this,” he said.

Left alone, she marveled at the make of it. The waist was tight, outlining her slim hips, and the bodice was lined with white ruffles. It was cut in layers of puffy skirts to fall just below her ankles, and although the sleeves were long, the top was scooped out to reveal her pale shoulders.

It was very generous to her figure. All Patience could think was that Leona had studied her very carefully when she had modeled, and produced something made _perfectly_ to fit her. It made her look _beautiful_. She could have _kissed_ the woman.

She was escorted to main reception area, where a line of guests were still waiting, and then to the main building. The arches and domes spiraled above her, and the orchestra, the guests’ chatter and the clink of glasses echoed in her ears.

Patience felt small. People were turning their heads to look at her. She had thought that she would enjoy it, but now that she was being stared at… she didn’t like it at all. She lifted the hem of her dress and hurried through the vast room, looking for a telltale blonde flash of curls.

Finally she spotted Leona—wearing a backless black dress with a hem that spilled onto the floor. The older woman had her back to her and was talking to two men.

“Leona?” called Patience tentatively, and she turned. Leona had done her hair half combed across her head, the other half curled delicately to brush her collarbone. Her dress dipped down in front to her waist, just stopping short of her navel. With her dress, her vivid blue eyeshadow and her matching nails, she looked like a dark Marilyn Monroe.

As she spotted Patience, her face lit up. _“Dolcezza!_ Come here, my darling! Let me introduce you.”

The first man was tall, with a bored sort of gaze, dark brown hair and unshaven stubble on his chin. He looked out-of-place, like he should be drinking in a dingy bar instead of mingling with socialites at a high-class reception. The other was shorter and more well-groomed, with thick black hair and a pair of glasses perched don his nose. He stared at Patience with naked dislike. “This is the woman you’ve been talking about?” he said.

”Yes.” Leona leaned forward and kissed Patience. “She’s wearing one of my new designs. Doesn’t she look amazing?”

The brown-haired man nodded approvingly, but the black-haired man’s lip curled. “These are my friends Giuseppe Benevento and Stefano Rizzo,” said Leona.

 _More Italians, huh?_ Patience shook hands with both of them, but Stefano dropped her hand quickly. “It’s a pleasure, Mrs. Sheehan,” said Giuseppe.

“Champagne?” offered a passing waiter.

“Patience, there are so many people I must introduce you to! Excuse me, is that you, Albert darling?”

Leona led her around the room, introducing her to her “friends”, some of whose names she had seen in the newspaper. They all seemed to be of Italian descent, save for a Mr. Sawyer, who had made a snide quip about Patience’s bust (or lack of it). Daddy had always warned her to stay away from Italians, he said they were all in the mafia. She didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but she was wondering how a union job netted Mr. Bianconi such a fabulous house…

“Le-oh-na,” said a heavy, sarcastic voice from behind them. “Seems like your little fashion show is netting you some returns.”

Leona blinked once, twice, and then her face settled into a placid mask. She turned around and smiled. “Salvatore! Come here, you!”

Leona embraced the man tightly and kissed him. He was a lean, black-haired man with pale skin and long, dark eyelashes. His lips were colorless, pulled in a smile, and his face was pitted and rough. “Nice of you to invite me. I don’t know shit about fashion but I’m enjoying the booze.”

Patience hated him instantaneously. The way he lazily looked Leona up and down, like she was a piece of meat, and then turned his gaze on Patience, made her shiver.

“And you are?”

“Patience Sheehan. Good to meet you, um, Salvatore…”

“Salvatore Mallozzi,” the man said, and stepped forward to embrace her. He smelled of wine and gunpowder. “You’re a cute little thing.” He copped a feel of her ass when he pulled away.

“I thought about not inviting you, but I was inviting everyone else, and I didn’t want you to feel left out,” Leona said sweetly. Salvatore gave her a brief sneer. “I’m enjoying the hell out of it. Some nice-lookin’ women here. They look like they know how to fuck.”

Patience looked at Leona. She still had her eyes on Salvatore, smiling elegantly. “You would know, wouldn’t you, Salvatore darling.”

“Yeah. I bet _both_ of us would know.” His voice dropped. “You little _slut.”_

Salvatore leaned forward to slide a hand down Leona’s neck and to the top of her shoulder, lingering on the top of one plump breast. Patience felt fury surge to the back of her tongue. “I’ll see you around,” he said.

He turned and began to walk off, and Patience, out of her mind with anger, strode forward. “Hey, you!”

“Wh—“

Just as he turned around, Patience threw her glass of champagne on him. It soaked into his dinner jacket, turning the white a sickly yellow. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” he hissed, grabbing her shoulder hard enough to bruise. He shoved her forward, his face a mask of rage.

“Leona is an amazing woman,” Patience hissed. “She’s kind and generous and beautiful. Don’t you dare insult her that way.”

People were staring. _“Pazienza_ , come here. Patience.” Leona’s voice had a note of warning. _“I’ll be seeing you,_ Salvatore.”

Salvatore snorted and turned away, though he was still eying Patience with disdain. “You really don’t know Leona that well, do you?” he growled.

Leona’s grip was tight on Patience’s arm as she led her away.

“I’m sorry,” Patience burst out to her when they got a good distance away. What she had done was catching up to her, and she was beginning to feel threads of embarrassment tighten her body “That was stupid of me. I always make decision without thinking. I—“

“No,” said Leona, and put a finger to her lips. There was a secretive smile on her face. “Thank you. Thank you so much. You were noble for me. I won’t forget this.”

Patience loved the way she was looking at her. Like they were sharing a secret. She embraced her.

“I’d do it for you any day,” she told Leona in a fit of pique.

***

The party was winding down but Leona and Patience were getting drunker and drunker together. Well, Patience was getting drunk, but Leona’d had only had two glasses of champagne and was sharp as ever. People were filtering out, the catwalk had been closed, and the lights were dimming.

Patience didn’t want to go home. She wanted to stay here forever and gossip and laugh with Leona. But she knew that Michael would want her back, so she reluctantly pulled away. “I have to be getting back. My husband is probably worrying about me.”

Leona’s lip curled when she heard the word _husband._ “Who cares about what he thinks? Every girl deserves to have a night out once in a while.”

They were drifting toward the exit, arm in arm. People were stopping on their way out to congratulate Leona on her fashion exhibition and Patience on her dress. “Let’s go to my house,” said Leona.

“Oh, I couldn’t possibly—“

“Tommy is out tonight. It’ll just be us, alone. We can take a dip in the pool, the two of us. Or we can watch something on television, have a little dinner…”

The more Leona spoke the more alluring it sounded. “O-okay. Maybe just this once.” After all, Michael had told her to have the time of her life.

They took the limo to her house on the other side of Garland, and when they got there, it was indeed dark and quiet. “No maids or butlers?” asked Patience as Leona unlocked the gate. The gargoyles glared down, their stone wings spread and their eyes boring into them.

“No. I don’t like it when people nose through my personal business. It’s just a preference.”

“You must have a lot of cleaning to do,” joked Patience.

Leona smiled, and for a moment, the slat of shadow from the gate cast her features into darkness. The only visible part of her face was her smile, and it twitched at the edges, as if pulled by a puppet’s strings. “I do.”

They walked into the house hand-in-hand. Leona stripped her dress off as soon as they got inside, and Patience nearly panicked. “What are you doing?”

She winked. “Going for a swim.”

Leona dived into the indoor pool, a clear blue lake surrounded by stone walls. Underneath, a mosaic pattern on the floor glowed through the pale water.

“Come on,” Leona called. “Come and join me!”

Alcohol was making her reservations dissipate. She stripped off her pink dress and dipped a toe in the water. It was chilly, but as she drew it out, Leona gripped her ankle and pulled her in.

The shock of cold water made her clutch the other woman tight as they floated in the pool. “Don’t you know how to swim?” Leona’s warm breath tickled her ear. “My little nymph?”

“I’m from Massachusetts,” Patience huffed. “Of course I do, I’ve spent my whole childhood swimming in ponds and dodging cottonmouths.” Her tiptoes didn’t reach the bottom, but she gave a leap in the water and paddled in place. She mischievously splashed Leona.

Leona splashed her back. Patience laughed and smoothed her wet hair to the sides of her face.

Leona was looking closely at her, her blue eyes dark and unreadable in the middle of her face. “Your eyes are so beautiful,” she whispered, her voice intimate. “Green as leaves. They remind me of someone… very… special.”

”Who?” teased Patience, swimming away from her. “Who do I remind you of? I hope I don’t remind you of your _boyfriend.”_

Leona smiled, but did not answer. Patience held her breath and dove down into the water, then seized her leg to pull her down as well.

When they were done laughing and chasing each other and diving in the deep pool, Leona stood up and shook her hair out, like a lion’s mane. “I’m ravenous. Would you like some dinner?”

Patience sat on the edge of the pool and wrung out her hair. “Boy, would I!”

Leona walked to the door, and the shards of the waves reflected off her skin, the swell of her breasts, the curve of her buttocks, the tips of her damp hair hanging to the small of her back. The light glimmered off her regal face, her high cheekbones and long, elegant nose. How could she be so perfect? How could someone so perfect want Patience as a friend?

Dressed in bathrobes, they made spaghetti together in the kitchen, Leona teaching Patience which herbs to use and how to stir the tomato sauce. They ate at the long, polished banquet table, side by side, and Patience hungrily devoured what had to be the tastiest spaghetti she’d ever had, even tastier than the corner restaurant she occasionally went to when she didn’t feel like making dinner.

Soon, Patience’s eyelids drooped. “I need to be getting back home,” she said.

“Nonsense,” Leona purred. “You’re far too drunk to be driving home. Come upstairs and you can sleep in my bedroom.”

If Patience had been a bit more lucid, she would have realized she hadn’t even driven there in the first place. But her gaze was spinning and sleep was overtaking her. “Okay.”

They took the tall, winding wooden stairs, Patience’s hand securely held in Leona’s, and Patience was coherent enough slightly bothered by the fact that Leona pulled her into her personal room. “Don’t you have a guest bedroom?”

“What’s wrong with sharing my bed? We’re both women. We can talk to each other all night and share stories, like real friends do.”

Patience was so tired she doubted she could share half a story. “All right…”

Leona dressed in a nightgown, but Patience was so tired she simply pulled off her bathrobe and flopped into bed. She barely remembered Leona lying down beside her. She was so drunk she immediately drifted into sleep.

***

Michael was between her legs, licking her with long, slow laves. Every corner of her body was alive with electricity as he pleasured her.

Every breath against her clit and every touch against her swollen lips sent her to heaven. She had never felt this much pleasure in her life, not even when she worked her own hand between her legs.

Patience arched her back, gasped, wrapped her legs around his head. He sucked on her small, tight nub of flesh, teasing it with the tip of his tongue, his murmured words of love vibrating against her mound of venus.

Her throat spasmed, sweat running down her forehead as she gripped his hair with her trembling hands. Her hot, love-slickened thighs quivered as he brought her to an overwhelming climax, and when she looked down through fevered eyes, his blue eyes stared back up at her, crinkled at the edges in delight at having made her that way.

Except…

Except Michael didn’t have blue eyes.

He had gray eyes.

Not eyes as deep and endless as the night sky, dark and beautiful and _hungry._

Patience woke up with a jolt.

She screamed and kicked her away. Leona’s head snapped back. Patience, legs spread and wetness trickling from between her thighs, gripped for her bathrobe and pulled it on.

“What did you do?” she screamed. “What did you do to me? Are you a dyke? Why did you that? I thought you were my friend! And now you’re doing this disgusting, unholy thing to me!” The betrayal made tears come to her eyes “It’s against the bible! It’s repulsive!”

Leona was sitting on the bed, hands pressing into the mattress, as Patience tied her cord around her waist. “Patience,” she said, seeming so calm, like she always did. She tucked a golden curl behind her ear and buttoned her nightgown, which was whorishly gaping at the center. “There’s nothing unholy about a woman pleasuring another woman. The bible says it’s a sin for man to lie with man. But does it say anything about women?”

It gave her pause, just a little bit, but her fury and betrayal was enough to eclipse that. “I know what you were trying to do. You’re nothing better than those fags who go suck each other’s cocks in dirty bars. You’re a married woman. And I am, too. You should go cut your hair short and eat pussy in some back alley!

Patience was furious, she knew, spewing hateful words, but her climax had still not faded from the corners of her body and she was trembling with hypersensitivity. She was trying not to cry. “I trusted you! I thought you were my _friend!”_

“I _am_ your friend, Patience. I’m the only friend you have in the world.” Leona slowly stood up. “Tell me,” said Leona quietly. “Did your husband ever give you half as much pleasure as I have?”

Patience stopped, hand on the doorknob. She wanted to leave this house—and Leona— forever, but instead, her eyes were fixed on Leona’s hypnotic blue irises.

“Tell me,” Leona whispered, “Did you ever moan and arch your back like that when your husband stuck his cock into you?”

Patience’s throat was tight, and although words worked to get out, they never did. Leona was right in front of her, her golden hair lit in back by the lamp. She seemed to be made of fleece, from her soft skin to her long, curling hair.

“Patience,” she said huskily. _“Pazienza._ Who needs a husband when women can have each other? There is nothing wrong with two friends sharing pleasure as well as friendship _._ Has your husband shared half of what we have between us? Does your romance even compare?”

It didn’t, but she didn’t want to admit that. Michael was domesticity, familiarity, comfort. Leona was passion, pleasure, and whirlwind. There was no comparing them.

Patience let herself be led over to the bed. “I love you, Patience. As a friend, I love you beyond compare. I want to bring you the greatest pleasure that I can. Do you love me, Patience?”

“I do,” she said, still crying, remembering chasing the waves with her at the carnival, remembering how Leona had comforted and enfolded her in her arms when she was upset. “I love you. You’re still my friend, aren’t you? Aren’t you?”

If Patience had been on her guard, she would have seen the slow, creeping darkness in Leona’s eyes. “I am your friend, forever and always, _Pazienza.”_

Leona was Aphrodite with long, golden cascades of tresses falling past her waist. Her porcelain face was of a Roman statue, a goddess of love with serene features and a half-smile. Her beauty was ethereal, her nightgown a toga half-draped from her shoulder. She was a goddess. A goddess in human form.

Leona slowly licked a long line from between Patience’s legs to between her breasts, keeping her eyes on her all the while. Patience’s breath shorted out as her tongue traveled up her soft, sensitive skin until it brushed her chin.

The blonde woman kissed her long and deep. The texture of her mouth, the smell of her perfume, her nails curling against her cheek, it all made Patience sink deep into a pleasure she never wanted to emerge from.

Leona pulled her down onto the bed. The tall blonde woman lifted her head once, between her legs, and her lips were in a wicked smile, and her eyes were somewhere in the fires of hell. _“Mia mignotta.”_

She gave Patience a slow lick, and her back arched into the heavens.


	2. Infanticipating

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Requested bonus chapter about the first time Leonardo saw Andrea.

It was a long birth, and it wasn’t easy.

The girl looked as if she were a young teenager, although the insults she hurled seemed to point to a more worldly, older woman. In any case, she was far too underdeveloped to be carrying a baby this big to term. She should have been induced much earlier.

When the baby fell out, after hours of pushing and shifting it to the right position, the mother was barely conscious, her face sickly pale from blood loss. Her hand was held limply in that of Mr. Borghese, and her eyes were rolled into the back of her head. Mr. Borghese had one hand cradling her face, but when the baby fell out, he stood up. “Let me hold her.”

It wasn’t breathing yet, and they were checking vitals. Shirley was cutting the umbilical cord that still tethered it to its mother. “Wait,” said Wendy, her voice still trembling from fear that either mother or child would die.

“No. Give her to me. I should be the first person to hold her. I’m her father.”

He was very insistent, almost overbearing, but Wendy ignored him until the baby erupted in a high, healthy wail.

It was then Wendy allowed it to be relinquished to its persistent father. Dressed as he was in a well-tailored dark suit and tie, he still cradled the newly born child close to his expensive clothing, blood and amniotic fluid staining his white undershirt. 

The sudden relief on his face was almost childlike, like a son whose mother had come home after a long time away. _“Ciao, Vittoria,"_ he whispered, so softly Wendy was she was the only one who heard. "I’ve been waiting for you a long time." 

His eyes shone like stars in the neon lights above. He stared at the mess of blood and placenta on his arms like he was staring at the manifestation of Jesus Christ himself.

"He needs to be cleaned,” interjected Wendy. “And his blood needs to be taken.”

“He?”

The sudden chill in his voice made a sense of doom fall over her. “Yes, he. Please give him back.”

Mr. Borghese’s face became placidly blank. He handed over his firstborn son as hurriedly as handing over a bag of trash. Then he disappeared out the door, the double doors swinging shut behind him. And Wendy and the nurses were left to clean and check the baby themselves.

When the boy had all his vitals checked and was swaddled and lying in a crib, Wendy finally let herself leave the room to wash herself. She was shaking hard. 

Outside, in the visitor’s room, she saw Mr. Borghese with his face in his hands, the blood smearing on his face. His mouth was downturned and trembling.

“Mr. Borghese?” She said weakly as she stopped in front of him. “Your son is safe.”

“My son?” He said quietly, not lifting his head.

“Yes. Your son is a healthy nine pounds, three ounces.” She did not mean for the forcefulness to enter her tone, but it did, and he seemed to wake up. “And how is she?” He said.

“It was a hard birth. She was split right up to the–” she felt embarrassed saying it, despite how angry she was. “Up to the clit.”

He took the information in stride. “When will she be able to conceive again?”

Wendy was almost horrified into silence. A labor that had almost killed the girl, and he was already eager to put the next baby in her. “Not for a long while. At least a month, if not several.”

She was not sure he had heard her. He had his eyes fixed solely on the hospital door, but when his flicked back to her, he had his smile back on. _“Grazie…_ Wendy." 

It was always Wendy. Never Mrs. Ledbetter. There was always a personal connection he latched onto with his smiling face and gentle voice and kind eyes. 

Mr. Borghese entered the hospital room, and Wendy watched him outside the glass windows. He took up the tightly wrapped bundle and sat it on his lap.

His mouth moved carefully, gently, speaking words of comfort in one language or another. His soft blue eyes were the color of the sky as he carefully held one arm of the baby and kissed its hand.

When Wendy came in an hour later, he was still holding his son, and his eyes were enraptured. He was holding his hand to gently cradle the back of his son’s head, his fingertips playing with the sparse blond curls. "Looks like his papa, doesn’t he? He’s got my hair. He’ll be tall when he grows up, he’s a heavy little thing, just as I was.” His smile widened; a pleasant memory must have made itself known. “Where is his mother?”

The girl was knocked out, in a deep sleep from intravenous drugs. “She won’t be awake for hours.”

The baby flailed its little arms and wailed. “He needs formula,” said Wendy. She was unsettled by the man, scared almost, and wanted to get him away from the child. He was too close to the newborn’s small body, too close to transmitting germs that would harm its fragile immune system.

“No. He needs his mother’s milk,” said Mr. Borghese. He lifted the wriggling little bundle to his chest, impervious to its screams. He seemed to revel in it, basking in fatherhood. _“Sssh, ssh, ssh. Andrea. Vuoi mamma? Vuoi mamma?”_

The baby gaped its little red mouth, and grasped with tiny hands to wrap around his firm finger.

“He needs… just a little bit of formula until his mother wakes up.” Wendy was pushing, but she wanted to separate them. It was very unreasonable for him to want to be alone, so close to a newborn that was barely an hour born.

“Poison.” Mr. Borghese sounded contemptuous. “I’ll play with him until his mother wakes up. We need to spend time together as father and son.”

Mr. Borghese tucked the edge of the baby blanket into the corner of his swaddle and cradled him to his chest. “His vitals are good, yes?”

“Yes. He’s a very healthy baby.” She gave a nervous laugh. “Strong set of lungs…”

“He can cry all he wants. I’m right here to protect you, little one. Andrea.” He smiled. “How does Andrea sound? A boy’s name for a boy.”

“It’s…" _a boy’s name?_ "A handsome name.” And he didn’t even bother to ask the mother? Had they decided on it beforehand?

“Andrea it is, then. _Il mio bambino, tuo Padre ti ama. Per sempre. Tuo Padre ti ama. Aspettare ancora un po’. Vedrai di nuovo tua madre. Non sarai mai separato. Promesso.”_

He kissed his son’s nose, and his eyes were wet, like rain streaming down a blank window, overflowing but never spilling with what might have been memories.


	3. Pisces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Facing off in the Opera House, Leonardo extends a hand of friendship to Salvatore. Salvatore takes it, and it doesn't end well for Patience.

Patience placed a hand firmly on his chest and shoved him back. “You’re disgusting,” she said. “Shut up. _Shut the fuck up.”_

But Salvatore wasn’t paying attention to her. This was between him and Leonardo. Leonardo who wasn’t looking livid or offended, but smiling placidly.

“Are you going to let her talk that way to you?”

His words suddenly shocked her. They weren’t directed at Salvatore in any condescending way, but were spoken in a soft, simply curious fashion.

Salvatore smarted. “She doesn’t—that’s no fuckin’ business of yours. She’s my girl, not yours—she’ll do whatever I say.”

“I most certainly won’t,” Patience spat, kicking him. “You shut up right now, you no-good son of a bitch—“

“Shut up.”

Salvatore’s voice was guttural, and as he stared at her, she saw the enmity directed towards Leonardo begin to slowly redirect towards her.

Leonardo’s voice spoke in the background, almost like an afterthought. “We Sicilians say that the woman rules the home, does she not? It seems like this woman rules you even outside.”

“That’s not true. I’ve fucked her enough times that she should know that by now. She needs to be taught a lesson.”

She felt Leonardo shift closer to her, so close she could smell his sweet cologne. “Sal the Bull,” Leonardo said. “I know we’ve been at odds during our… career. We’ve clashed. Both Borghese men and Di Scarpetta men have died during our disagreements. But I admire you. We’ve gotten off to a bad start. You’re genuine in a way none of the other bosses are; you care about your men. You’ll get right down in the dirt and the muck with them.“

Salvatore snorted, but she could see the tenseness in his shoulders easing, but not leaving completely. “Somethin’ you’ve never done in your pampered life.”

Leonardo smiled softly, not offended in the least. “My strengths lie elsewhere.”

Patience sat between them, her hands sweaty and gripping the red velvet. The high wail of the soprano wafted through the silent opera compartment. She felt as if she were in between two tigers, ready to pounce

“Salvatore,” said Leonardo. “We have far more in common than any of the other bosses. We’ve collaborated on the Florida deal. Under the noses of Sharky and The Cardinal, I might add. We are the future. After all, we’re young. Sharky and The Cardinal, they are stuck in the past. The world is constantly changing. And you know that us, our thing, _cosa nostra,_ can only survive if we look to the future. “

Salvatore said nothing, but she could tell he was thinking. Patience felt a sick sort of beat erupt in her heart.

“I offer you a truce, Salvatore Bruno Mallozzi. Become my partner. We will take out Old Man Bianconi and Alberto Cardinale. It will be us who rule over Garland City’s underworld; and its drug trade. Between the two of us, there is nothing we cannot accomplish.”

The tenseness in the compartment was too much to bear. Her breaths came in shallow and high, her spine stiff and cold with the slow doom and anticipation.

Wordlessly, Salvatore reached forward to grip his hand.

***

Patience erupted in fear. “What are you _doing?”_ she wailed. She pushed Salvatore away from Leonardo. “You promised me you would help take him down!”

“Change of plans, sweetheart.” Salvatore’s voice had the same lazy baritone it had had in the restaurant. “I’ve found a more lucrative gig.”

Tears swam in her eyes. She wanted to tear her hair out. “You no-good cocksucker. You betraying bastard. I’ll—“

“There she goes, mouthing off to you again,” broke in Leonardo softly. “You said she needed to be taught a lesson, didn’t you? Why don’t we put her mouth to better use?”

Salvatore eyed her, a particular hostility in his eyes. “You know what, Leo Angelino? That sounds like a good idea.”

The growl in his voice was like a slavering dog, cornering her with his pack. And really, wasn’t that what was happening? He wasn’t her ally anymore. He—and Salvatore—were a pack now.

And she was their prey.

Salvatore gripped her hair with his rough hand and forced her head downwards. She tried to her head back, but he gripped her hair so hard it tore her scalp, and with tears in her eyes, she opened her mouth as he worked down his fly.

The hot sensation of his cock against her lips made her gag, but not as much as when he forced it into her mouth.

She was crouched, halfway on the sofa, halfway sitting, and so Leonardo gripped her legs and swung her fully onto the couch. She was now crouched like a queen being mounted by a tom, with her bottom in the air being securely held by Leonardo, and her front half subdued by Salvatore.

Salvatore’s rough fingers slid down the straps on her dress until her small, sensitive nipples poked above the fabric. He pinched them so hard she winced, the rough pads of his fingers twisting them into bright red nubs.

His cock was pulsing in her mouth as he shoved it deeper, the head nudging against the back of her throat. She felt a gag rising up in her, threatening to spill bile, but she knew that if she vomited he would hurt her more, so she swallowed her nausea.

Preoccupied as she was, Patience did not notice the dress being slid above her waist. She did notice when her panties were yanked down.

She gave a muffled cry and tried to kick out behind her. But finely manicured nails sunk into the underside of her pale leg, and Leonardo held her firmly, spreading her legs.

Salvatore was moaning under his breath, steadily thrusting into her mouth, and she could barely move a muscle with his grip on her. One hand was wound around her hair, and if she didn’t suck hard enough, he yanked it. The other one was taut around her shoulder, shoving her breasts forward to touch the base of his cock.

Her lungs were screaming. She could barely breathe.

She heard a distant clinking. “What the fuck are you doing?” barked Salvatore accusingly.

Leonardo’s voice was smooth as a cat’s. “Well, you’re not leaving me out, are you? I’m her lover too. And didn’t you say we needed to teach her a lesson? Dominated by two men at once… wouldn’t that be the ultimate lesson to teach a woman?”

She wasn’t sure Salvatore heard them, because his breaths were becoming more shallow. He was caught between his pleasure and his fury, and his pleasure won out.

The instruments rose to a crescendo outside the compartment, and she knew that the audience was enraptured by the gorgeous opera performance set out before them. But all she could think of was her little corner of hell, right here in this compartment.

 _How strange,_ some part of her thought, _that something so beautiful should happen, right when her life had reached the pinnacle of despair._

The corner of the sofas arm was sharp. Sharp enough, she thought, that she could gash her wrist open.

She entertained that thought until Leonardo slid into her hard. The sudden invasion made her spine stiffen and her breath short out.

“What the hell you stopping for? Keep suckin’.” Salvatore shoved her head forward again, impaling himself inside her.

Leonardo held her waist in a vice grip, his pants bunched around his knee. His cock rammed forward, then slowly dragged out until the red, pulsing head remaining inside her body. He paused, as if he were savoring the moment, and slammed back into her.

The blond man’s hands were wound around her waist, playing with that little bundle of muscles, and his body was laying across hers, his skin warm and his breaths expanding against her back. The steady rhythm of his cock, sliding deep inside then withdrawing, made her unwillingly start to build to climax. His hard, pulsing member inside her, coupled with the other one thrusting down her throat, made a confusing mixture of pleasure and misery erupt inside her.

Patience smelled his cologne, sickening sweet like a rotting body, mixed with the sweat from Salvatore. She would never forget that smell. She wanted to vomit. She wanted to die.

Finally, she could no longer take it anymore, and his relentless stimulation made her lose herself. Both cocks inside her were stimulating some deep-seated need inside herself. And as much as she didn’t want it to, they pushed her over the edge to orgasm.

The trembling, heightening pleasure washed over her like a wave, leaving her shaky-legged and gasping.

The soprano continued her aria. Tears dripped silently down Patience’s cheeks, glittering in the light of the lanterns.

Salvatore gave one last, heavy thrust, and something hot and salty spilled into her mouth. Patience gagged and tried to spit it out, heaving like a fish out of water. But he forced her jaw closed, and she forced herself to swallow the mixture of puke and semen that had biled up inside her throat.

 _It will all be over soon,_ said some distant, naïve part of her that grew up in the sunny Massachusetts rivers. _Then you can go back home. Back to Flora. Back to…_

White trickles dripping from her mouth she began to sob as she realized she would ever be returning home again.

Leonardo put a leg over the back of the couch and gave one more hard thrust inward. She felt his thick, white seed filling her, soaking her cervix, his hips strong and bruising against hers.

With his body trembling, she could tell that he relished her cry of despair.

“Oh, shush,” said Salvatore, sounding distracted. _“Cara mia,_ I’ll take you out after this. I know a good restaurant I can take the three of us to.”

 _The three of us._ Patience had the feeling that it would be the three them more than ever. A man on either side, caging her in.

Leonardo exhaled slowly and withdrew, running a hand over her quivering backside and tucking her dress securely under her.

“I think this is the start of a good partnership,” Leonardo said in a businesslike manner, pulling her back up to sit beside him. He kept an arm securely around her, stroking her arm as Salvatore struggled up and began zipping himself up.

“It is,” agreed Salvatore, sounding jovial, his pale face flushed as he watched the end of the opera. “We’ve got a bright future ahead, Leo Angelino. For all of us.” He cast a glance at her that might have been called loving in any other circumstance.

Patience sat there trapped by her two jailers, sobbing heavily as despair overwhelmed her. Her parents’ revenge, Benjamin, Michael. She did not want to let them go, but they were fading, farther and farther out of reach.

The red curtain of the opera drew shut, and the raucous cheering of the people overwhelmed her as her life spiraled into hell.


	4. All I Have To Do Is Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Patience Mallozzi deals with a large family and a husband who is in prison most of the time, and trauma repeats itself amongst their children.

_ uno _

"Hey. Bob. Isn't a bigshot mafia boss supposed to live here?"

Officer Hartwell studied the address. "... it says this is the place."

The neighborhood was a wreck, and that was putting it lightly. Peeling, flat one-story trailers, dotted with decaying, out-of-place victorians, lined the street. Fire hydrants sagged on the cracked sidewalk, and weeds poked through spidering cracks in the concrete. A shirtless boy was riding his bicycle around the yards, zipping and weaving his way through the overgrown patches of grass.

Officer Hartwell stopped in front of a home whose front yard seemed to have been converted into a dump. Miscellaneous trash, broken toys and empty bottles littered the yard. He opened the broken latch on the gate and stepped inside.

"Jesus Christ. People live like this?"

"It's a poor neighborhood, Bob. What, you never seen how the other half lives?"

Officer Hartwell rang the doorbell. He could hear the distant whining of an infant coming from inside. Distantly he heard, "Donna! Get the door!"

The boy on the bicycle had stopped across the street from them. He stood, one foot on the ground, and watched them. He was too far away for Officer Hartwell to make out his expression, but his posture suggested heavy suspicion.

The peeling front door was opened by a young girl with her black hair in scratchy braids, her lower lip stuck out in a pout. "What do you want?"

"Is your daddy home?"

"Mama!" the girl yelled behind her. "It's the cops again! They wanna see Daddy!"

A woman appeared at the end of the hallway, her brown hair in a harried bun and an infant clinging to her waist. She was tiny-featured and pretty, wearing a slim-waisted, flowered and stained dress. "Oh. Come on in. Close the door behind you, please." She turned around.

They followed her into a living room. The inside of the house was not much better than the outside. The television was blaring and a morose-looking dog was lying on the floor, a toddler yanking its ears this way and that. Overflowing ashtrays covered every surface.  Officer Whitehead tripped over a toy. 

"Sit down. I'll get you lemonade." The woman pointed to a scratchy sofa, stuffing coming out of several rips in the fabric.

The officers sat down, awkwardly watching Tom and Jerry get up to hijinx. Hartwell noticed a picture on the wall. It was framed nicely and colored so delicately it almost looked like a watercolor. It was the woman, no doubt about it, in a pretty white veil and wedding dress. She had the same round face and freckles dotting her pale skin. Her eyes were soft green and she was smiling happily. 

Beside her was the man himself--Sal the Bull, scourge of Garland City, connected to dozens of disappearances, murders, assaults, thefts, businesses being burned down, and everything in between. He looked handsome in the picture, dressed in a tuxedo with his dark hair slicked back and a broad, happy smile on his face. The picture highlighted his best features, his high cheekbones and dark, arching eyebrows. His happiness was rather startling to Officer Hartwell, who had only seen the man in mugshots on what looked like the worst day of his life.

The door opened again and the woman returned, sans the baby. The difference between her and the picture was rather unfortunate. She had nothing of the glow the picture had, just a harried, resentful manner that spoke of too many children in too short a period of time. "Stop bothering the dog, Tony."

She slammed the glasses of lemonade down in front of them and went to slump in the armchair. "My husband isn't home right now, but he will be soon. Just make yourselves at home."

Officer Whitehead sipped the lemonade and pulled a face. He didn't know if she noticed, as the toddler had abandoned tormenting the dog and gotten up to toddle towards her, holding his arms out. She picked it up and settled it on her lap. "What's that fucker in trouble for now?" 

Officer Hartwell was shocked at her casual swearing. There were  _ children  _ in the house. "Mrs. Mallozzi, uh, we'd prefer to take it up with your husband…"

A loud wail came from the adjoining room, and the woman belted out, "Wanda! Get your baby sister!"

At that moment, the door opened, and the boy on the bicycle came in. Close-up, it was immediately obvious whose child it was. He had the gangly frame of his father and the vivid green eyes of his mother. "What do the cops want, mama?" He boldly came over and picked up Officer Hartwell's untouched glass of lemonade before downing it, staring coldly at them.

"Put a goddamn shirt on, Sal Junior. Christ, you should be back in Sicily mucking pigsties like your father, you know that?"

"We just want to ask Mr. Mallozzi a couple questions," said Officer Whitehead, eager to get out of this place as soon as possible. The baby had started up its wailing again.

"So… how did you meet your husband?" Said Officer Hartwell, making an effort to be nice.

Mrs. Mallozzi looked flustered for a second. "Well, I was freelancing and we met through… mutual friends."

"Mommy met Daddy at the Caravaggio Hotel," said another girl proudly, popping her head through the door. "It was love at first sight. She was sitting at a bar and--"

"Keep your mouth shut! Wanda, I thought I told you to get the baby. It's no wonder your daddy smacks you so often, you can't do  _ anything _ right!" Mrs. Mallozzi snapped rather harder than she needed to. Apparently a nerve had been touched. She nodded to her son, who was sitting on the floor next to the dog. "Sal Junior's the entire reason  _ we  _ got married. Otherwise, I promise you, I wouldn't have given a thought to marrying that no-good dago."

The vitriol in her tone was unsettling. She seemed genuinely unhappy and full of hate.

The engine of a car made the officers perk up. "Is that your husband?"

"Maybe. His friends come through all the time, though."

"Friends like…?" Officer Hartwell's carefully probed question was forgotten as the front door slammed open.

It was a testament to the depressing nature of the household that the dog didn't bounce up, start barking and race down the hallway. Its ears pricked, its eyes rolled towards the door, but other than that it might as well have been a doorstop.

A tall, wiry man came bustling through the hallway, hair ruffled and an irritated look on his sharp face. He cuffed his son heavily around his head as he passed. "Get the fuck up off the floor, Junior."

Sal Junior did so, scrambling up and watching bright-eyed as the man turned his fearsome visage on the two officers. He wore a sleeveless shirt and suspenders, and a coat was draped over his arm. "Do you have a warrant?"

"No. We're just here to ask you a couple questions." Officer Whitehead took out a photograph. "Do you know this man?"

Mallozzi barely glanced at it. "Look at this shit. Harassing good, hard working Italian families. Why don't you start in on the real criminals, like that crook Nixon? He's the one ruining the country. You could even start closer to home and harass that rich fuck Leonardo Borghese. How the fuck you think he got so much money, huh? Entrepreneur, my ass."

"I don't like the way he looks at my daughters," muttered Mrs. Mallozzi, bouncing her toddler on her lap. 

"Fucking pervert. You should make an unannounced call on  _ him,  _ see what you find in  _ his  _ basement. Get the fuck out of my house. I have to start dinner. And I don't wanna see your faces anywhere  _ near  _ this neighborhood without a warrant." 

Their welcome worn out, the officers morosely got up and buttoned their coats. The toddler had slid off his mother's lap and stumbled towards its father, latching onto his leg just before the couple started in on each other again. The sounds of their argument followed the officers right onto the street.   
  


_ due _

Patience was waiting at the door when Donna came home. It was past midnight, and when she yelled at her that it was past curfew, Donna looked at her with that cold, brutal gaze that Salvatore had fixed her with so often and brushed past her. Donna was beautiful, in a regal way that had the boys panting over her--she had her father's sharp, dark, high-cheekboned features, as regal as Cleopatra. Like her older brother, her eyes were vivid, light green, standing out like gems in her pale face.

Patience followed her to her room and kept yelling at her even after she slammed her door and locked it behind her. Donna turned her radio up loud to drown out her mother's voice, and Patience stood there in frustration, tears starting in her eyes, before Wanda's soft voice sounded underneath the pounding music. "Mama?"

Patience was not fond of motherhood, but sometimes she thought that Wanda was all worth it. "Are you okay, Mama? You're not crying, are you?" Wanda had a face that was made to smile. She had her mother's perfect, round features and her father's straight, soft black hair. Her eyebrows met right in the middle. Her eyes were dark and gentle as a doe's. 

"No. I'm fine." Patience heaved a shaky sigh. "It's just your sister. Wanda, I'm blessed to have you," she said little louder, hoping Donna heard her. "Let's have some tea and watch Mary Tyler Moore."

Patience hated to say it, but after the hospitalization, Wanda had become much more manageable. She was repeating her grade for the third time, but she didn't argue as much, didn't chatter as much, and did as her parents told her to. She was always smiling now. Salvatore had stopped hitting the children, for the most part, after Wanda had come back from the hospital. Patience still remembered him crying at the table after the ambulance had taken her away. Patience had been threatening to leave him, she'd been packing her bags, but decided, in the end, she couldn't leave. What was there for her anymore? She'd been without a home since before she married Salvatore, and would be without one as soon as she left him. 

And things  _ had _ gotten a little better. A little. Until Salvatore went to prison again.   
  


_ tre _

"Yes. I'd like to speak to Salvatore Mallozzi, inmate number 177261."

_ "Hold." _

A few seconds of elevator music later and the receiver was picked up and a voice growled through the reception.  _ "Patience?" _

"Sal? When is your next court date?"

_ "It's the seventeenth. My fucking lawyer lost the paperwork for my appeal and we had to reschedule." _

"Salvatore, you need to get out of prison. I just… can't handle the kids by myself."

_ "Just give them a smack when they backtalk you. It's what my mama did to me." _

_ Yes. And you turned out so well. " _ There's only so much I can do… Sal Junior is skipping school and Donna is staying out late at night. I don't know what she's doing. She's like you, Salvatore. She hates authority, she's a hot tempered mess, she's always off doing her own thing."

_ "Look. I'll get Jack to stop by and have a talk with them. We'll get this sorted out, all right, cara mia?"  _ He used her nickname then, his voice softening, and for a moment she almost broke down, wanted his arms around her. "I miss you, Sal."

_ "I miss you too. I'm gonna get out of here, okay? I'll take care of you and the kids." _

A few tears beaded in her eyes. "Sometimes I wish I'd never married you."

He heaved a sigh.  _ "I know." _

Deep, deep down, what she really feared was the fact that sometimes, she  _ did  _ love him. And the worst part was, she thought he knew it, too. The brief flashes of tenderness she felt for him, between the shouting, the hitting, the crying. Small moments, him slipping his hand into hers as they watched television. Lying beside him in bed, his warm arm wrapped around her body. Watching his face as he held their newborn baby, knowing finally that she was at home, with a family.

But only moments. And then the reality of their marriage crashed down around her again.

She hardened up. "Good. Do something. And for the love of god, you get on your lawyer's ass as well. I can't control this household without you here!" 

_ "Just don't worry about it. I'll get this straightened out. Talk to you later, okay? I love you." _

"All right." She hung up and pressed her face into her hands. Josephine and Anthony were arguing in the other room over a board game. Out of all her children, she had high hopes for those two. Josephine was doing well in school and Anthony was part of his school's baseball team. She hoped, but that was all she could do. Sometimes she felt like a pawn in this family. Sometimes she felt like all she could do was watch.

_ quattro _

Tony and Jo had gotten into a fight over who had their frisbee yesterday. Jo had lost her temper and thrown it onto the roof. He had held her down and punched her, until their father had come out of the house and made them both sorry.

By the time they sullenly pulled their backpacks and went walking to school in the morning, they were still on the outs. The Romeros' German Shepherd mix jumped at the fence and barked as they passed by. Donna walked on ahead, as if she were trying to pretend she weren't related to them. It wasn't hard--Tony and Jo looked nothing like the rest of her siblings, who all closely resembled their father. Both had round faces and freckles and soft, downy brown hair; however, Anthony had his father's big, black eyes.

Donna spotted her group of friends and lifted a hand, jogging to meet them. Donna had a lot of friends, boys and girls. She liked her friends a lot more than she liked her family, but even then she got into an awful lot of fights with them. Donna didn't seem to like much of anyone, really.

They got to school just as the bell rang and Jo furiously kicked some gravel at him before running off to class. "I hate you!" Tony yelled after her.

By the time class was over, Tony and Jo had forgotten their tiff, and were happily discussing what to do as soon as they got home. It was a bright, dry summer day and Jo wanted to go to the pool--but, Tony said, the pool would be too crowded with how hot it was today. They wondered if their big brother Sal Junior would take them on a joyride with his friends and maybe stop and get a burger--no luck, his car was gone as soon as they came home.

Daddy was home, and they heard his raised voice coming from inside. Jo thought that he was fighting with Mama again, but when she pushed the screen door open, she found him having a heated conversation on the wall phone, cigarette clutched in his hand. He was speaking Italian, which Tony and Jo understood a little of, enough to know he was calling whoever was on the other line some very nasty names.

"Can we play in the junkyard, Daddy?" Jo yelled over his snarled conversation. Daddy waved at them offhandedly, which was good enough for them, so they got their bikes out and pedaled away down the block.

The junkyard was set behind an abandoned department building. People dumped their broken cars, appliances, bags of trash, furniture--everything under the sun was baking in the heat. Sal Junior used to scavenge through the dump for bottles to sell when he was younger.

It smelled unpleasant, but then, it always did. Jo went to bounce on a discarded sofa, the cushions torn off and the beneath ripped to show the box springs. Tony pulled a discarded car's door open and jumped inside.

He settled himself in the driver's seat and grabbed the steering wheel.  _ "Vrooooom,"  _ he said, yanking it this way and that. He pretended he was speeding down the highway in a convertible, wind in his hair. He kicked the gas pedal.  _ "Screeeeee!"  _ He twisted the wheel sharply to the left, pretending he was being chased by the cops. What else did cops do? They harassed his Daddy all the time. Daddy had gotten into his fair share of car chases when he was young. He'd said that once when he was a young man, he'd shot out the windows of a police cruiser as they drove by. Daddy was  _ so cool.  _ Or at least he had been, until he married Mama. 

The smell was unbearable in the inside of the car. Tony wiped some sweat off his forehead.  He distantly heard the  _ creak  _ of box springs as his sister bounced on the sofa.

Something in the rearview mirror caught his eye.

His whole body froze. Every muscle screamed at him to move. A prickle came over the back of his neck.

There was a man in the back seat.

No, not a man, a  _ body.  _ A  _ body _ was slumped over the back seat, skin sloughing off, skin bloated underneath its cheap suit, lips blackening and shriveling in the heat.

Tony unfroze with a jolt, and pulled the door open. His legs weren't working and he collapsed on the ground before, chest heaving and tears starting to streak his cheeks. "Josephine!" He screamed, running towards her. "Josephine! We need to get Daddy! There's a dead body in the car!"

"What?"

"Come  _ on!  _ We need to get Daddy  _ right now!" _ Tony was sobbing, and when Jo saw him sobbing she began to cry too, and they ran all the way home, in their fear completely forgetting their bikes.

The sight of their peeling one-story house had never looked so good. They nearly tripped over the concrete steps as they tumbled inside. Daddy was on the sofa now, reading the paper and sipping coffee, keeping half an eye on the news. As soon as he saw his childrens' tear-stained faces, his eyes sharpened and went livid in protective fury. "What happened? Did someone hurt you? Are you all right?"

"W-we went to the junkyard and Anth--Anthony saw a dead body in a car!" Jo screamed over Tony's sobs. Daddy's face went gray. "In a car?"

"It was in the back seat, just--lying there," hiccupped Tony.

"Lemme make a few calls first. Then you can take me there, all right? All right?"

Dad called Uncle Jack and Fat Uncle Tony. Then he followed his children down the block. Anthony and Jo's legs were aching from all the walking by the time they got to the junkyard. Fat Uncle Tony and Uncle Jack were already there. Uncle Jack bent down and took Anthony's shoulders. "Where did you see the body, Lil' Tony?"

Anthony wordlessly pointed at a tan, gutted Camaro. Daddy and Fat Uncle Tony went over to pull the car door open and talk in low voices, but Anthony could still hear snatches of conversation.

"--our men?"

"Andreotti…"

"Borghese…"

"They can't do this shit. My kids saw this. My  _ kids." _

Uncle Jack hugged them comfortingly. Jo loved Uncle Jack. He always dropped by whenever Dad was in prison to help around the house and take them out for ice cream. Mama liked him, too--they spent a lot of time talking, especially when Daddy wasn't there.

Daddy came back. "C'mon, stop crying, Anthony. Daddy's going to take care of it." He wrapped his arms around his young children and lifted them up. For such a thin man, he was very strong. Tony remembered him and Uncle Gabe replacing the fence when he was little, and he had hammered in all the fence posts by himself.

Daddy carried them back home. Jo let her eyes droop as she leaned on his shoulder, breathing his familiar scent. It reminded her when she used to lie between her parents in their bed as a young child, sucking her thumb, listening to her mother breathe and smelling the mixture of old cigarette smoke and sweat from her father.

Daddy walked them home and gave them two scoops of chocolate ice cream each. With sprinkles. As Tony started in on his bowl, he looked at them with unusually gentle and kind eyes. "Anthony, Josephine, I'm proud of you, you know?"

Jo managed a smile through her gap teeth. "Proud for what?"

He shifted to sit next to them and hugged his strong arm around his children, pulling them next to him. The television blared. His dark hair was getting greasy and long, and his wife beater was stained with sweat. He looked over his kids proudly, more proudly than when Josephine had gotten an English award. 

"When you saw something was wrong, you didn't call the cops. You went right to your Daddy. That's what you should always do. Don't trust those pigs. Come straight to me."

  
  
  


_ cinque _

Donna had been born at the wrong time, in the wrong place. 

In the very back of her mind, the turbulent first years of her parents repeated over and over. She remembered her father slamming her mother into the stove, his hand forcing itself up her legs. She remembered her mother pointing a loaded gun at her father and shooting him in the leg on the outside door stoop.

Men, she thought, were all like that. Donna had stood in the doorway, crying as Daddy had pummeled Mama's face with his fist. Mama had slumped over the oven, the blood from her face speckling the ceramic tiles. What had scared Donna was the blankness of her face. It was the same blankness she had seen as when her mother watched her father curse and bleed from his shot leg, crumpled on the doorstep.

That was what men would do to you. They would sap your hopes and dreams, imprison you with squealing children, and force you to take care of them into their old age. They would trap you, and you could never leave them.

They would make the resentment fester deeply inside you, until you pressed a pillow on top of your screaming newborn baby, and met your eyes from across the room.

Donna's dark eyes had met her mother's. She hadn't said anything. 

She was afraid she would be next.

Josephine and Anthony knew nothing of that dark time, and she was grateful for that. They were brats, but she wished her childhood on no one. Kids deserved to be kids.

Sometimes Donna wondered what was so different between their family and Uncle Gabe's. Uncle Gabe looked so much like Daddy, but acted so different. He never hit his children. He and Aunt Barb loved each other in a way Mama and Daddy didn't. Gina and Gabe Junior were in college, and they had a freshness in their faces that Donna had never seen, neither in her siblings nor her own tired face in the mirror.

Early on it had been bad. Daddy was on cocaine. Mama didn't want any more children. That blond man had been stopping by a lot, trying to get Daddy arrested, trying to get Mama to move in with him. The police were around all the time. Uncle Jack started spending nights at their house.

It had been her, Junior and Wanda who had weathered the storm. Wanda had stepped forward, argued, been proactive. What had it netted her in the end? Daddy had gotten sick of her and slammed her head into the side of the table. And then Wanda had lost the light in her eyes.

Wanda was simple now. She let anyone take advantage of her sweet nature, and Donna could tell by the curve of her belly. When her parents could tell there would be hell to pay, but Donna would be away by then. She'd be in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, somewhere where she could put her talents to use. All the sticky fumblings in the backs of cars, her spread legs against the wall in the back of the football field--

She'd be gone. She'd be far, far away from her family. 

And that, more than anything, would free her.

Donna stayed outside the school, leaning against the wall and watching people stumble out on their way to the game. Walter spotted her. "Donna! Are you hoping for a Garland win?"

Donna didn't care one way or another, but she smiled as the star football player bulled towards her. Men were all the same, weren't they?

  
  


_ sei _

Sal Junior was fast asleep when the first gunshots rang in his ears.

He pulled himself out of bed the way only a firstborn son could, slamming the door open and putting himself out, despite how afraid he was. Bullets whizzed by his ears, scorching him. He stood blankly, cowering under the eaves of his house as his father swore and shot and stood like a hero in his rotten backyard.

Hero. Like Superman.

Mama pulled him back away from the living room, cursing and sobbing, but her arms seemed so weak.

When he was huddled in his mother's arms, away from all of this, his father came in, blood soaking his pants' leg. He was panting.

"C'mere, Junior," he rasped to his older son, blood puddling on the ground. Junior was afraid to walk into his arms, but did so anyway, leaving his mother behind.

The bathroom was always dirty. It had toothpaste stains on the sink and piss stains on the toilet seat and mold creeping onto the edges of the curtain.

Daddy pulled a silver revolver out of his belt and pressed it into Junior's hands. "Listen. Junior. Junior, look at me! You're almost a man. One day I'm not gonna be here. You have to learn to protect your family. Take this. Take it! Your mom is going to be relying on you. Your brothers, your sisters, your kids. Stay here and look after your mom." And then he was gone.

Salvatore Junior replayed that conversation in his head over and over, rewinding it like a tape. He thought of his life from then until now, his endless series of fuckups and mistakes. He wondered if he had been better off if he had taken that gun then and there and blown his own brains out. Who had he protected, really? He hadn't been able to even protect himself. Why else would he be lying on a cot, staring at a blank, gray cell wall, with his whole life down the drain?

He remembered being a little boy, playing with his dog--a dog whose name he couldn't even remember, a dog in a long line of dogs that could have been the one hit by a car or shot by his father in a fit of rage or died of old age--and he threw the baseball over the fence and watched his dog carry it back, then picked up the drool-covered ball and threw it over the fence again. He did it until his legs ached and his dog's sides began to heave in exhaustion, and when his mother yelled at him that it was time for dinner, he pretended he didn't hear her. For the moment it was just him and his puppy, romping away from the arguments and the sounds of his siblings crying and the cluttered poverty of his family's house.

He was started out of his reverie by the cell door screeching open. "Court time." A uniform was thrown thrown down on the bed, and the door slammed shut again.

Sal Junior scratched the holes in his arms. He knew he needed to get up and make himself presentable, but knew deep down it wouldn't make a difference. So he lay there and dreamed.

  
  



	5. Swing Me Round The Moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A lighthearted snapshot from Patience Winslow and Salvatore Mallozzi's marriage.

"He kissed your hand. He kissed your  _ fucking  _ hand."

Patience deposited her infant in a tub of soapy water in the sink. "It's Leonardo Borghese. He does that to everyone. He's a gentleman." She gave him a hurtful look. "You could stand to be more of a gentleman."

Salvatore was pacing around the cluttered living room, hair messy and a cigarette clutched between his fingers. His eyes were dark and wild. "I'll kill him. I'll kill that cocksucker. Touching my wife like that… I saw the way he looked at you. Fucking blond bastard, smug privileged little fuck. I bet he thinks he can have anything he wants--including you. I'll show him. I'll walk up behind him in an empty street and put a bullet in his skull. I will--"

"Look at you. A week out of jail and already planning on murdering somebody."

_ "Daddyyyy,"  _ whined her daughter from the doorway.

"Why don't you play with your children? They haven't seen you in a year. They're happy to have you back."

Salvatore scooped up his daughter and sat her on his lap, still shaking. The girl pulled at his sleeveless shirt, waving a doll in his face.

"It's not fair you been putting the twins in between us when we sleep," he growled. "I can't even hold you. I'm a man, you know. A man's got needs."

"Well, if you're not going to wear a condom then I'll just have to keep doing it! You spent a year in prison with your right hand, you can wait a little longer!" She slammed down the fork she was cleaning and glared at him. 

He didn't seem to be listening to her. He and his daughter were watching a Disney cartoon on television, but his eyes seemed far away. She did not like the look in his eyes. She knew that look. It meant he was about to do something stupid, get into trouble again. 

Patience shook her head as she went back to drying silverware. Sal knew better than to do that. He knew she would give him hell and high water if he did something like that again. She'd been on her own for a year and she had just got her husband back, she wasn't going to let prison have him again any time soon.

***

The kids were all read to and put to bed, so Patience dotted on face cream and slid under the covers to wait for her husband. One of the twins had his thumb in his mouth, the other was fast asleep. She curled up around them, waiting for Salvatore's heavy footsteps to clomp down the hall and his tall body to depress the bed beside her. Her eyes had only just began to drift shut when she heard the front door lock unsnap. 

A jolt of fear rushed to her head as she ran out into the hallway. Salvatore had put on an overcoat and was loading a revolver. The barrel had just snapped shut and he was preparing to tuck it into his fly when Patience hit him head on.

"Salvatore Bruno Mallozzi, don't you dare! Don't you dare!" She blabbered, forcibly holding him back as he tried to elbow her off. 

"He had it comin' for a long time," he spat. "This was the last straw. Last fuckin' straw. I know what he's gonna try to do to you when I go back to jail. Gotta take him out for you and the kids."

"You will be going back to jail for the rest of your life if you do this!"

His eyes were black as hell and burning with hatred as he yanked the door open. At wit's end, Patience resorted to the last trick up her sleeve--the one thing she knew she could rely on to get him to stop.

She took his face in between her hands and kissed him.

Patience felt the tension leave his body immediately. She wrapped her arms around his neck as his hands went to her waist, pulling her towards his hard body. Salvatore kissed her like a man drowning, sucking her tongue so hard it went numb, conquering her lips with harsh, hot kisses. 

Still kissing, she felt for the wall, feeling her way down the hall until they reached the living room.

He was fumbling her silk nightdress, pulling it over her head. She was glad he had presence of mind to do that, at least. Sometimes he would be so worked up he would rip it off like an animal. Her eldest daughter kept wondering why her nightgowns always ended up torn and left in the trash.

His overcoat fell to the floor as he pulled his shirt over his head, exposing his lean, muscled chest. His calloused fingers thumbed over her soft skin, around her small pink nipples, and delving between the apex of her thighs.

He was a heady lover, and a forceful one. Some part of her liked that. She always went away fulfilled--in more ways than one. She morosely reminded herself to pick up another bassinet when she went to Woolworth's. Good grief, three children in this house under the age of three and one soon to be on the way.

They were both naked now, his erection pressing above her navel. He was a tall man, and strong despite his spindly appearance. He picked her up and effortlessly threw her onto the sofa. A squeaky toy squeaked under her back.

Patience was wet from his caresses earlier, and arched her back as he pushed himself between her legs. The tip of his cock pressed against her lower lips, hard and pulsing, then slammed in up to the hilt. It had been so long since she had a hot cock in her that her whole body went limp, the pleasure washing over her in a river as he started his rhythm.

"No--" she managed, sitting up to press her hand over his chest. Her face was flushed, brown hair messy. "The… the bedroom. The children could see us."

She stood up shakily, covering herself with her nightgown as they hustled into the bedroom between kisses. The bedside lamp lit them in a soft orange glow as they fell backwards--

One of the twins whined.

***

Both of them were stock still for a moment as their child turned over and pressed his face against the pillow. Their lips were still entwined, frozen.

Patience moved first, creeping out of the room and leading her husband by the hand. He collapsed on the sofa in a sudden paternal fit, his thick dark hair in a mess, as if he were a wholesome Desi Arnaz fretting about his home life. "All these fuckin kids," groused Salvatore.

"Whose fault is that?" Patience grumpily knew they would be conceiving their next tonight. Sometimes she wished she had never let him badger her into marriage. She slid her legs over his, settling into his lap. The head of his cock slid into her as she swiveled her hips, and he responded by wrapping his arms around her waist and slamming her forward.

It had been  _ so long.  _ She remembered when they had just married--she had already been pregnant, but that had not dampened his lust for her. They used to spend hours in bed together, his lips latched onto her swollen nipple and her gasping mouth. Her pregnant belly had fit so well against his lean one, and she felt a sudden leap of excitement as she thought of herself getting heavy with another one before she squashed it cynically, as she had with every positive feeling she'd ever felt towards him.

She rode him silently in the cluttered quiet of the room. The dull black glare of the television reflected them, two bodies hung over each other. Her hair curtained her face as he slammed up into her.

Her nipples were ripe as berries, her legs trembling and her body racing with pleasure as his cock dragged against her swollen pink walls. He pressed a rough finger on her clit as she rode him to climax, and the extra spurt of fire made her walls clench around his length. 

The rush of semen into her ripe, waiting womb made her bite her husband's shoulder, hard. He just laughed and slid his hand behind her head. "You're still being the shy girl I knew when we met, huh?"

"I wasn't shy," she murmured, eyes half lidded with pleasure.

"Hell you weren't. I could tell you'd never been fucked before in your life, with your little coiffed flip and your tiny pursed lips. You wouldn't even meet my eyes. Once you got a taste of me, you couldn't stay away." He kissed her ear warmly. "And I can't stay away from you, either. Fuck, I'd take you over Marilyn Monroe, you know that, Patty?"

Her insides were beginning to relax as her orgasm faded away. She had enough strength to tiredly lift her head and try and whisper something in his ear--before the door knocked.

"Mama? Papa? It's getting kinda cold. Why is the door open."

Patience tilted her head back, the tips of her hair tickling the small of her back. She and Salvatore shared an exhausted, matching smile.

"Just close it, honey. Mama and Papa will come to bed in a minute."

  
  



	6. Equilibrium

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What if the scales of fate had tipped, and Patience had Salvatore's baby instead?

There was always that small chance.

One percent out of a hundred. Fifty. Eighty. No matter how you explained the dates away. Some complex medical explanation, overlong expectancy, miscalculation.

One small chance. Needle in a haystack.

***

When the baby came out–wrapped in a caul that Wendy had to break with a scalpel–it was perfectly formed, small and weak, with a full head of black hair. Holding the small thing in her arms as it commenced the first, healthy wail of a newborn, Wendy felt something cold creep over her back.

Mr. Borghese was standing there, arms held out and a plaintive smile on his face, “Can I see her?”

Wendy was frozen, the baby dangling from her arms, and Borghese took a domineering step forward and reached for the covering it was swaddled in.

Wendy could pinpoint the moment in which he realised the child wasn’t his. The hair was too dark to be the chestnut bay of its mother. His face was frozen in the warm anticipation of a father holding his child, still like a mirror image. His eyes were a bottomless swamp.

“Perhaps could I hold her?” His voice broke into her ears.

“No,” said Wendy almost immediately. She clutched the baby tight. “It needs to–be weighed and checked first.”

***

Today was Borghese’s last speech, but he didn’t show up. He made no comment as Nizzola dropped put of the race. Garland City was lost and confused.

Wendy watched it at home, listening to her son bustling around in the kitchen. Buster was a good boy, taking over the house duties without a complaint when his father died. He had high marks in school and wanted to join the Marines. She was proud of him

Watching the flustered commentary of Borghese’s campaign manager, she wondered how he was feeling. She remembered the serpent look on his face as he rounded on her–if they both die, you both die–and then the dead look as he beheld the nameless child. She felt a sudden wave of fear come over her.

“Buster?”

“Yes, ma?”

“I’m going in for another shift at the hospital tonight. Keep an eye on the house and don’t stay up too late.”

She clocked in in the middle of the night and made her way to the baby’s ward. The emptoness of the halls was familiar but strangely strangely unnerving. She went to check the baby ward.

Wendy felt an immediate prickle on the back of her neck as she approached. The ward was usually empty, save for this sole child. The lights were switched off, as they should be. As she passed, she noticed a shadowy figure standing over the one occupied crib.

Her heart went into overdrive. She hurriedly switched the light on and rushed in. Some heightened part of her wanted to attack the figure, but instead she hurried to the baby’s side and swept it up. “What are you doing here so late? It’s time for the baby to… to get her checkup.”

She was expecting him to see right through her hurried excuse, but his eyes were far away. He stared quietly at the baby in her arms. He looked disheveled. “I just wanted to hold her.”

“You can, after we–we take her blood pressure We’ll bring her right back,” she lied.

Wendy clutched the wailing baby to her chest, feeling the blank, penetrating gaze on her back. She felt like she was turning her back on a lion. The baby had been pressed against the pillows face-down. The babies were never put down like that. It could lead to… suffocation.

She could imagine his eyes, blue as a shattered robins egg, as he pressed the child’s sleeping face into the soft, smothering pillow, his eyes showing that certain blank, and yet concentrated sanity.

It had no birth certificate. Borghese refused to sign it. If it died tonight, there would be no record. No evidence of its existence save for a young woman’s body torn open in another room.

Some primal mother instinct made Wendy clutch the child tight. She stayed by its side during the whole night, performing meaningless tests and keeping it warm and fed, making sure she watched over it each and every second. She snipped off the shrivelled umbilical cord and changed its diaper and swaddled it. It became clear to her that it was a girl. Out of a fear to not let it vanish if it disappeared the next morning, she took out a birth certificate and noted a name on it, the name the girl who had given birth to it had groaned out.

Darla.

***

The next day she delivered it into the arms of its mother. The woman was young–she looked all of fourteen, and Wendy desperately hoped she wasn’t. Her pale face lit up when her black-haired daughter was placed into her arms. “Here’s your little girl.”

“Darla,” the girl whispered, holding the infant to her small breast. She really was so young, wasn’t she? The baby had to nose until it found the nipples. The girl’s face was relaxed in the vacant, blissful post-birth way many mothers were. Then something dawned on her.

The fear that crept over the girl’s pale freckled face was slow, dead, like a shadow falling across her face. She looked down at her newborn daugher like she was looking at a dying animal nestled on her arm, then looked up at Wendy.

Her eyes were filled with tears.

“No,” she said.

Wendy didn’t know what to say.

The girl was shaking hard, her voice trembling like she had a gun to her head. Her eyes dripped tears of fear.

The girl wasn’t speaking. Her breakdown was entirely internal. She held her daughter tight to her chest, her eyes dripping tears down her nose as her body trembled like she was bejng electrocuted.

“Do you need formula?” Asked Wendy gently. “Do you want to be alone? We can take your daughter–”

“No!” She was on the verge of screaming. “No, please, no, don’t take her away–not my–no. No.” She was on the verge of hysterics.

Wendy wanted to reassure her that she was safe, but she would be lying and the girl would know it. Sooner or later Borghese would come back. And after that. And after that…

Wendy did not know who she was to him. But the fact that he was the mayor, and she was a young woman who she knew nothing about, did not bode well. There was something dark lurking behind them, something she wasn’t comfortable digging into for the sake of her safety and her son’s.

***

“I’m a cousin,” said the man.

One look and Wendy knew who he was. The pitch-black hair was one thing. The virulent, insanely PERSONAL fury behind his facade was another. The man could not hide it. His fingernails bit into the ceramic tae, his eyes black and bloodshot and livid.

For a moment she wondered whether she should send him back. But while his overwhelming, hot anger was one thing–it burned, was overwhelmingly emotional. Borghese’s didn’t. Borghese’s anger was cold and methodical, and scared her more than anything she had ever seen.

“She’s in room 42,” she told the father of the child softly. The man stood up, tall and wiry and furious with a paranoid bonfire in his eyes. Wendy stood at the desk for too long, until her legs hurt, tense and waiting to hear a high scream for help.

Wendy went back and shuffled her files, ears pricked. What if the girl was being strangled to death, her face choked and blue? What if he wasn’t the father at all? Wendy made up her mind, she would go back there–

Finally, she heard the click of leather shoes, a soft gait where it had previously been heavy. The black-haired man emerged from the hall, carefully cradling the small bundle of a newborn on his hands.

The change in his posture was evident. It was as if the fury, the terrifying tenseness, had been washed away. He stared down with a half-startled, half-adoring look on his face, the child wrapped securely in his arms. The baby was wiggling, not used to being away from its mother. Wendy felt a sudden pang of worry, and didn’t want to let them leave. Her motherly instinct had come back full force when she saw little Darla, and she didn’t want to let her out of her sight.

“She’s too young. Sir, you should put her back.”

The man started, then looked at her. “She’ll be fine. My mother had three children–she’ll know what to do. My Darla will be fine.”

Against her worrying, he gently carried what had to be his daughter out of the building. Every molecule of “nurse” in Wendy’s body wanted to chase him. Down, but something more cautious and dark made her hold back. Perhaps the primeval female sense that had kept young safe for hundreds of years. A sixth sense, one more informed by the innate mistrust of the blond man who everyone seemed to trust.

Wendy gave the man on Room 5 his lunch, checked his IV, and scheduled release for him tomorrow. The man in Room 31 was near death from a bullet wound, and she did a quick packing up his belongings to prepare for his passing.

She visited the girl to bring her dinner, and she was curled up on the side of her bed, arms loosely wrapped around her body. Her eyes were dry, and her eyes staring into space.

The girl didn’t react to Wendy’s gentle pleas for her to eat. She didn’t respond at all, not a blink or a twitch. All she did was look into space, her eyes glazed and blank.

Wendy left the tray there and left for the door. In the doorway she heard a small whisper. “Please, Mrs. Ledbettter.”

Wendy stopped, one hand on the side of the door.

“Please say it died,” she said. “When he asks–please. Please say it died.”

***

The next day the door to the hospital swung open and a well-groomed man with a million dollar smile and his blond hair slicked back came in. “Buongiorno, Mrs. Ledbetter. How have things been since I’ve been gone?”

He had given his delayed speech over the radio to millions of cheers. Wendy had shut it off as soon as she heard it come on the radio.

The calmness of his voice sent her mind into a peculiar spiral. She felt helpless letting him in the hospital, knowing whatever he did she could not prevent. “Mr. Borghese, I have some bad news.”

His dark eyes flicked up as he jotted his name down, and his pen stilled. “Is she alright?” His voice was quiet, but his eyes fixed on her with pitch-black pupils, unwaveringly blank.

“The girl is… the baby isn’t.”

“Oh, dear. What happened to the poor thing?”

“Ahh, it had a… breathing problem, and it… didn’t survive.” Wendy thought of the frail girl in the back, and then the dark-haired man with her child in his arms. Wendy’s eyes became blurry, and she blinked some tears away. Please be safe, Darla.

Leonardo was looking at her closely, and as a trickle of a tear wormed its way down her cheek, he appeared mollified. “How awful. The mother must be disconsolate.”

“She’s not taking it well. I’m afraid she needs to be alone, for the duration of the birth, to prevent infection. Perhaps in a few weeks–”

“Women in my country give birth and are working in the fields the next day. A woman’s body is very durable.” He finished and snapped the visitor’s log closed. “I’m sure she’ll need comfort and support during this trying time.”

Wendy could do nothing but watch him pass her toward the main hall of the hospital

He paused in the doorway. “Incidentally, I don’t want any interruptions. No matter what you hear. Stay out of her room until I leave.”

With his last words, all she heard heard was the click of his polished shoes on the linoleum. She stared at the visitor’s log book, at the loopy, calligraphic signature on the bottom of the page, then she closed the book and went into the back room and put her head in her hands, and did not get up even when a high, shrill wail began to echo through the hospital.


	7. There's Just Something About The Neighbors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mrs. Haywood is relieved by her new neighbors, the Borghese family--a husband and wife and the husband's father. They are quiet and keep to themselves, a welcome relief. But as the family grows, the silence takes on a new, eerie quality as Mrs. Haywood begins to suspect that something dark lies beneath their surface.

Flora Haywood liked her new neighbors.

The last ones had been a pain, acting as though the fact that they had moved into a middle-class neighborhood gave them special privileges. They stayed up and partied til the dawn, laughing and hollering until she couldn’t sleep any longer. When they moved out, it was a enormous relief. They hoped the newer neighbors were quieter.

They were.

It was a married couple and the husband’s father. They moved in quietly one day, not a peep. She stopped by to take some cookies to her new neighbors and the wife thanked her wanly but never invited her inside. She was a pale little thing with long, straight brown hair. She kept tugging her sleeves over the bruises on her wrists (“got them while moving boxes”). 

Flora never saw them outside much. Occasionally the father or husband she would see walking to work, or the wife would be doing yardwork, but other than that, they kept themselves away from the other neighbors. The husband was a handsome blond man who always tipped his hat to her when he saw her on the street. Flora wasn’t sure what his job was–she thought he was employed by his father in his business, although she never did find out what business it was. The son had mentioned it was something to do with clothing, possible a factory or high-quality tailor store. 

The only time she had seen the husband’s father was when he turned up on her doorstep to inform her that her lawn was becoming too overgrown, and told her to mow it. Didn’t ask. Told. That one meeting was enough for her, and she would be glad if she never had to see him again. 

She was surprised to see that apparently the couple had children, as she had never seen them outside. At the grocery store she had run into the wife, sporting a fresh bruise on her cheek and a split lip, and more concerningly, a baby bump and a two-year-old. The child had a chubby round face and thick black hair–recessive genes?

When Flora greeted the wife, she looked panicked and refused to answer any questions about her child. She left the store soon after. From then on, whenever the wife saw Flora outside her home, she ducked inside.

Flora’s musings about the neighbors were pushed to the back of her mind when her daughter Caroline came back from college, reeking of pot and dressed like a beatnik. She was taking a semester off to work and raise money for a trip to California. She took odd jobs babysitting around the neighborhood, even for the Borgheses, which did not last long.

“That family is fucking creepy,” Caroline told her mother. “Mr. Borghese’s father is always staring at me. I’m pretty sure he wants to fuck me. And I think someone is beating those kids. They always have bloody noses and the husband won’t let me give them baths; I think they’re bruised. Someone should call the cops on them.”

Flora was tempted. A couple times, when the sounds of an argument or children crying wafted over to her side of the street, she nearly did. But then she thought of the dark cars that occasionally would be parked in their driveway at night. Of the shady men who were always in and out of their house. And their Italian last name. And she thought better of it.

***

One day when Flora went out to get the mail the wife was sitting on the doorstep crying. One of her younger children, a little blonde girl who looked all of three, was trying to comfort her, but kept looking lost and crying as well. Flora went across the street. “Are you all right, Mrs. Borghese? What’s the matter?”

Mrs. Borghese looked thinner than she ever had. Her eyes were holes in her face as she looked up at Flora. “My baby’s dead.”

“What?” Flora was shocked. “What happened?”

“He… I just… I went in and…his body…” she was talking wildly, seeming desperate to tell her but unwilling to admit to something.

The husband came outside and ushered her in, then picked up his daughter. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Haywood,” he said coolly. “My wife has been dealing with a lot over the past few days. We’ve just had a family tragedy.”

“I’m so sorry. Is there anything I can–”

“No, no. But thank you. We just need to deal with this as it comes.” He entered the house again and closed the door after him. Flora craned her neck to try and see through the window in the door, but like most things in the Borghese family’s life, it was covered tightly by a curtain.

***

Caroline was due for her trip to California, and was waiting outside for her friends to pick her up. Every time she looked over at the Borghese’s house across the street she got a little more agitated. “I never saw no funeral for that kid.”

“They probably held one privately. They’re a private family.”

“Too private. They’re hiding something. It’s fishy that half of those kids got black hair. Either she’s screwing around on him or she’s getting some on the side from dad-in-law.”

Flora was horrified. “Caroline!”

“I’m not saying it was of her own will. That woman looks like a beaten dog half the time. The way the father in law treated her was weird, too. Always shouting at her and giving her orders. And her husband would just stand by and look on. Something fucked up is going on in that household! PROMISE me you’ll call the police after we leave? Those poor kids don’t deserve to live like that.”

“I will,” promised Flora, having no intention of doing so.

As she watched her daughter leave, speeding off in a dented Buick with her hippie friends, she looked across the street at the Borghese’s house again. The father-in-law was on the porch, watching her. She wasn’t close enough to discern his features, but his posture suggested something ominous, and she went inside quickly. The Borgheses were not neighbors you wanted angry.

***

Pippy, her Staffordshire terrier, had taken off across the street in pursuit of a squirrel. Flora was tromping around in her neighbor’s backyards, yelling his name. She heard distant crying and snatches of conversation, and followed it out of curosity. After brushing aside a bush, she came to a tall wooden fence–the Borghese’s garden, heavily fortified just like everything else about their house. She peered through a slat.

She had never seen their garden before–it was clean and well-kept, just like every other middle class garden. Neatly trimmed lawn, and a white porch swing hanging between two trees. From her vantage point, she was behind the porch swing, looking at the backs of Mr. and Mrs. Borghese as they say side by side on the swing.

The faint sobs that drifted through the air were punctuated with his gentle, soothing remarks. 

“Calm down, dolcezza. I’ll kiss you, there. I’ll make it all better…”

“Get off me. It needs to stop. You need to do something. You’ve done nothing in this marriage! You’ve been no help! You men, all you want is a warm hole to stick it in.”

“That not true. I love you.”

“If you really loved me you’d do something about this! He’ll want to do it with me when you’re in the room! And when the children are in the room! How can you let this happen? You call yourself a husband and a father?”

“Patience, we’re talking about my father. My _father_. You are asking the impossible of me. It would be easier to flee to the moon than to go against my father.”

“I’ll kill myself! I’ll kill myself and take every last one of our children with me! I can’t live like this!”

“Patience–”

“I will never forgive you for what you did to my parents,” she said, and her voice suddenly became icy. “But if you want the slightest, smallest glimmer of my gratitude–if you want me to give you the smallest modicum of respect as my husband and father of my children–the ones which are yours, anyway–”

Flora could not believe her ears. Her knees were hurting from crouching, and her lungs were screaming for air from holding her breath. The details–the unfurling tapestry of horror in front of her very eyes–were so unbelieveable she wondered if she were dreaming. Her daughter had been right. Caroline had been right all along. There was something very wrong with the Borgheses.

“There is nothing I can do. Patience, there is nothing. You’re not the only victim here, Patience. How do you think it feels to me, having to watch this happen to you and the children? Do you know the last time I stood up to him? I was eight. Do you know what he did to me? He stomped my head into the floor until blood squirted from my nose. There is nothing I can do.” He paused, and his voice became quieter. “Unless…”

The silence that followed was as tense as a bowstring, and Mrs. Borghese finally said, “No. What you’re suggesting–it could go wrong. It WILL. He’ll know. He’ll know–”

The plank Flora had been leaning on shifted, the fence post moaning. The two whipped around, their conversation ceasing, and the minute before Flora turned away, she saw a huge, purpling bruise on the side of her face. Flora acted quickly, hurrying away into the treeline. When she was out of sight she let out a shaky sigh, leaning against a tree. Her legs were shaking, her heart pumping. She suddenly felt a sickening sense of danger. She was not supposed to hear that. 

***

Pippy came back home the next week, muddy and tail wagging, and resumed chasing Mickey, her gray tabby. Flora breathed a sigh of relief. She had barely ventured out of her house since that day, save for groceries, and refused to even look in the direction of the Borghese house. She agonized over whether to call the police. The only thing that stopped her was the fear that Silvio Borghese would find out–and what he would do to her, and, god forbid, Caroline if he did. The sickening knowledge of what was going on in that house made her want to retch. Every time she caught a glance of the children in the yard she wanted to rush over and rescue them. 

That day, the only member of the Borghese house outside was one of the daughters, a young girl with coke-bottle glasses and her thick black hair in pigtails. She was riding her trike down the sidewalk, glancing back at her house every few pedals. She never went past the perimeter of the house, and when she reached the end, turned and pedaled back to the other end. She was so preoccupied with not going past the invisible line that when she craned her neck back to look at the house she lost control and crashed to the ground.

Maternal instincts activating, Flora rushed out and over to the child, picking her up and cradling her. “Oh, my god! You poor thing, are you hurt? Come on, let me look at you.”

***

The girl was nervous at being in Flora’s home, she could tell. She sat ramrod-straight, her knees pulled together as Flora rummaged around in her bathroom cabinet looking for cotton and rubbing alcohol. 

As soon as Flora applied it, the girl’s face went ashen. Tears streamed down her face and her jaw wobbled, but she didn’t utter a peel.

It was very odd to Flora, who knew children cried at the smallest things. And this was a deep wound, too–she had skinned her knee. “You can cry, honey. It’s okay.”

The girl’s words escaped in a shaky whisper. _“Nonno_ hates it when we cry.”

She said nothing else, and when Flora sent her home with a bandaged knee, the girl went up to the front door, dawdled a bit, looked back, and then finally, reluctantly, pulled the door open and was immediately yanked inside.

***

It had been a few years since the Borghese family moved in across the street. Their children were mostly old enough to go to school, and every day they slogged their way down the sidewalk to Catholic School in their little uniforms, the older ones holding the hands of the younger ones. She never saw them with friends from school or the neighborhood. The Borghese children kept to themselves. They were polite to Flora when they saw her, and spoke mostly in Italian amongst themselves. The only trouble she’d ever had with them was with the oldest son, a hulking child with blue eyes and two front teeth missing. She had found him torturing Pippy while he was tied up in her front yard. He had been beyond the fence, holding a sharp stick and trying to poke his eyes out. Flora had yelled at him, and he had smiled blankly at her with his gap-toothed grin, then turned and trudged back to his house. 

Mrs. Borghese was pregnant again. She was always pregnant. Flora had no idea what the household must have been like with so many children crammed in a medium-sized home, but she rarely heard any racket from the children. There was always an eerie silence from the other side of the street.

Only the sounds of an occasional argument between adults, which were few–at least until now–would sometimes pierce the silence. And it was becoming more common. She could discern the shrill, high voice of the wife, and then the booming, thunderous voice of the father-in-law. Sometimes she even heard one of the children, either crying or adding their voices to the fray. 

One evening when she was pruning her water lilies the wife came to her yard, wringing her hands and asking if she could borrow some peroxide and bandages. Her whole manner was nervy, and she kept stuttering. She wore a yellow gingham dress, but the apron was smudged with dirty fingerprints and the skirt had been ripped and badly mended.

Flora took her inside immediately. As she bent down to rifle through her products under the sink, Mrs. Borghese closed the curtains over the kitchen. As soon as the door had snapped shut, her manner had become more panicked. Mrs. Borghese turned to Flora. 

“Can you do something for me? Please?”

The woman looked so young. Battered and tired, but young. 

“Of course, honey.”

“Can you drive me to a hotel? Just, any hotel. I need to–I just–please?”

“Alone? What about your husband? Will you be taking your children?”

She looked stressed. “No. Not them. None of them. I need to be alone. I need to get out of–”

Her rantings were cut short by a soft knock on the door. _"Pazienza?_ What are you doing here? Please come home.“

"No!” She cried. She was shaking. “I will not. Leonardo, go away. Leave me be. I won’t go back to that house–and that man. You can’t make me!”

 _“Che ne sarà dai bambini?”_ his voice had softened into barely legible Italian. _“Li lascerete in pace?”_

Mrs. Borghese fell silent. Her face held a rapidly crumbling resolve. Flora met her gaze and shook her head firmly. Mrs. Borghese’s eyes hardened. “This thing has to end. Leonardo, for the good of our children, too. Call–call the police, call Sawyer, hell, you can call the federal fucking authorities if you want to go that route! But I’m not coming back, Leonardo! Not if you drag me kicking and screaming! None of you care about me, how I feel, if I’m tired, and the children, god, the _children…”_

 _“Pazienza,”_ he said quietly. _"Allora faremo.“_

She was quiet again. Her face was turned away from Flora, but her shoulders were stiff. On the nape of her neck, half-covered by her hair, Flora saw a thick white scar indented with looked like teeth prints. _"Che succederà se falliamo?”_ She whispered.

_“Non lo faremo. Lo faremo insieme. Lo faremo stasera. Stasera. Vieni fuori, dolcezza.”_

Whatever he said made her reach her breaking point, and she slowly reached out to unlatch the door. Mr. Borghese was standing outside, hair slicked from rain and his suit damp. His face was gentle, but froze minutely when he saw Flora. He probably had hoped she hadn’t been listening in. He offered Flora a vague apology and led his wife back across the street, arm wrapped tightly around her shoulders. The streetlamp light glinted coldly off his golden curls.

Flora lay awake in bed, waiting for the argument to begin, the shouting between father-in-law and daughter-in-law. But she heard nothing. It was a quiet night in the sleepy suburb of Dearborne Heights. 

***

Flora was awoken by the scream of an ambulance. Fearing the worst, she threw off her covers and ran out onto the doorstep. 

There were police cars and an ambulance outside the Borghese house. Other neighbors were milling around–police cars were a rare sight in Dearborne Heights.

A policeman went over to push back against the nosy neighbors. “What happened?” Said Flora. “Was someone hurt? Did something happen to the children?”

“Reported suicide. Keep back, keep back.”

Her worry broke when she saw the Borghese family huddled near the house, talking to another officer. Mr. Borghese looked calm as he gave his statement, but Mrs. Borghese looked shaken, clutching her many children close to her. Most of the children were crying, some of them looked to be in shock. But some of them had a carefully schooled look on their face similiar to their father’s.

Eventually the family separated and got into police cars, and the crowd dispersed, as did the police cars themselves. Flora went back inside, her mind whirring. The whole situation seemed like a dream. The death, the couple, the conversation she had overheard–nothing added up.

Actually, she thought, everything DID add up. Just to a different answer.

***

The next morning Flora heard a knock at her door. She debated whether to answer it, hand hovering near the doorknob, until another, more irate knock sounded at the door.

Flora opened it hesitantly, and a man wearing a broad fedora barged in. He was dressed in a black suit; dark-haired, with wire-rimmed glasses that glinted coldly as he eyed her. “Flora Haywood?”

Flora nodded.

“Mind if I sit down?” He punctuated his words by pulling out a chair from her kitchen table and sitting down anyway. “I’m sure you’ve heard about the… unfortunate incident at 34 Knight Street, just across from you.”

“…Yes… it was Mr. Borghese, Senior, am I correct?”

“I’m afraid so. Silvio Borghese. Single gunshot to the temple, self-inflicted. Horrible, horrible. I understand you knew the Borgheses personally.”

“They’re my neighbors, but I don’t know them well.”

His voice was as cold as his eyes. “So if, for example, someone from the police stopped by, and asked you some questions, what would you tell them?”

“Wh-what kind of questions?”

“Oh, you know, the usual. Whether you heard anything that night. Whether there had been any… discord in the Borghese household as of late. Simple things, routine things the police tend to ask.”

She felt a chill come down her back. “Who are you?”

“A friend of Mr. Borghese, junior. Leonardo.” He smiled and got up, perusing her keepsakes neatly lined up on the mantlespiece. To her horror, he picked up a photo of Caroline. “Your granddaughter?”

She swallowed a lump. “Daughter.”

“Lovely woman. She looks about the age of my wife. Truly in the prime of her life. A young woman with her whole life ahead of her.”

Flora would have done anything he had asked of her in that moment. “I don’t know anything about the Borghese family. I heard nothing last night. I don’t know a thing. The family keeps to themselves.”

His eyes flicked up to meet hers. “And that’s what you’ll tell the police?”

“Yes, yes, that’s what I’ll tell the police! I don’t know anything! Please, I have laundry to do. I can’t sit around and talk all day!”

He smiled as he left, a smug secret smile that told her he had accomplished exactly he had come to accomplish. She locked the door, latched the windows, and immediately called Caroline. She sounded woozy on the other end and the sounds of partying were in the background, but she was safe. Flora cautioned her to be careful, and Caroline agreed in that sure-mom-I-promise tone that teenagers took when they had no intention of listening to their parents. After wrangling more promises out of her to call every day, Flora hung up and spent the rest of the day peering out the window, watching every car parked on the sidewalk and every passerby.

***

The police never came, thank god, and Flora assumed the whole situation was over and done for when the large Borghese family, sans the grandfather, moved back into their tan suburban house across from her.

It was as if a shadow had lifted from Knight Street. Within a week the high fence around their property had been knocked down. Flora saw Mr. Borghese building a treehouse with his sons in the large oak tree in their backyard. The Borghese children were out and about more, and they seemed to be making friends, for the first time, around the neighborhood. Mrs. Borghese saw Flora outside in the garden and smiled and waved, something she had never done before. She looked vibrant, healthy, with no bruises. She gave birth several months later to a baby girl, who she dropped off at Flora’s sometimes to be babysat. Leonardo even held a block party, with his smiling, beautiful wife and their newborn the centerpiece.

In the blink of an eye it seemed that years had passed since then and the eldest son was going to high school. But Flora never lost that sense of unease. The neighbors were outwardly affluent, popular people…

But sometimes Mrs. Borghese would get a look on her face, and Flora knew what lurked under the surface was never far from bubbling over, and that the secrets Flora had touched on were too deep and numerous for her to understand.

Not that she had any desire to.


	8. Vice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Male!Patience/Leonardo

Patton spat out blood.

Every part of him burned and jarred his nerves with a nightmarish intensity. Fucking dago bastards. Fucking wops. They had nabbed him at Dandy’s Bar–he had to have been given up. Jimmy O'Toole. It had to have been Slick Jimmy. That slimy mick fuck. However much he had played the friend, Patton knew he had one thing on his mind: advancement. He’d sell out his mother for a grimy fistful of dollar bills. When Slick Jim had invited him, with the promise of setting up a meeting with a bigshot in the Di Scarpetta family, he had actually delivered him right to the Borgheses. If Patton ever got out of here then he was going to hunt him down and shoot him in both of his kneecaps, then beat him to death with the barrel.

Patton’s short, ruffled brown hair was yanked upwards, and a mirror shoved in front of his face. “Lookin’ good, aren’t you, Winslow? Enjoying your makeover, courtesy of the Borghese family?”

His face was battered and bruised. His eyes were bloodshot. The bridge of his nose was shattered and he felt a tooth come loose under his tongue. A sheen of blood covered his face, now and then marred by bruises. He looked nothing like the man he had been. Patton had delicate features, taking after his mother more than his father. A petite nose, pert chin, lightly dotted freckles, and a boyish face of the type often heard sung about in Scottish Ballads. He had tried to offset his effeminate features with a ratty moustache (the only one he was able to grow) which his girlfriend often told him made him look like a sex offender.

Thinking about his girlfriend made him want to cry. He remembered the mornings they spent trading jabs at the breakfast table, the way she looked as she danced onto the theater stage, the sheen of her hair as he combed it after she got out of the shower. God, Candace. Would he ever see her again?

A sound like wind whipping the trees. The blowtorch was on again. Strips of skin were hanging off his knee. The memory of pain was enough to freeze his body, and all he could do was watch with a rapidly dwindling sense of hope as the blue flame came closer and closer to his skin–

“Allora, cos'è tutto questo?”

The voice made him jump, and underneath the agony came a boiling hot hatred almost strong enough to drown out the pain.

He heard the door snap shut, and heavy footfalls through the room. The man working on his knee looked up and gave a gap-toothed smile. “Heeey, Leo Angelino! Just keepin’ him warm for you, sir.”

“Oh, dear. Looks like you’ve been keeping him a little TOO warm. He is still alive, isn’t he?”

“Course he is, sir.” The man suddenly pressed the blowtorch against his skin, making Patton give a strangled scream of pain. “See?”

Patton heard the scrape of a chair, and then the voice again. “I’ll take it from here, Ace.”

Patton felt crippling relief as the blowtorch was switched off, only to have it replaced by trepadation as he wondered what Borghese would do to him now. He knew the man had no compunctions. The bodies of his parents flashed in his mind.

“Well. Well. Well. Patton Winslow. Massachusetts native, came up to Garland City a few years ago. Made a bit of a name for yourself boxing in Jersey City, didn’t you? Napoleon, they called you. I’m supposing because, let’s face it… you’re not exactly a tall man.”

God. Patton hated that fucking nickname. Last time he heard it he laid the guy out flat, and since then no one had been stupid enough to call him it in his presence.

“Cocksucker,” Patton ground out. “Untie me and I'l show you just how good of a boxer I am.”

“I highly doubt that, Mr. Winslow. As things stand, I doubt you would even be able to stand up right now.” He nudged his kneecap with his own knee, and it erupted in pain.

Patton glared out through the caked blood on his face. The basement they’d hustled him in was most likely deserted, as was the house above. It was on the outskirts of Garland City, far enough away so that their nearest neighbors were grazing cows. It was dingy, broken wood covering the floor and dust particles floating in the air. Not a speck seemed to get on Borghese.

The man radiated cleanliness. He was a tall man, slim but strong, as evidenced by the muscles on his exposed forearms as they dangled over the back of the chair. He wore a dark blue suit with a tie tucked in the front, his hands covered by leather gloves. His face was a little sharper, but youthfulness softened the harsher lines. He didn’t look a day older than he had when he had that fateful day when he had aimed the gun at his parents. His hair was neat and combed back, his blond curls quirking in finger waves on the side of his head. His nose had the same arch, the same bump in the middle, and eyes the same color… that color…

Those eyes were fixed on his, as blue as a frozen lake, set over a mouth that smiled as if it had been painted on. “You’ve been asking a few too many questions, Patton. Is there a reason you’re so… interested in my activities?” He tapped his busted kneecap, making Patton wince.

Patton took a breath. His heart was thudding. They were alone together, him and his mortal enemy, the enemy he had stalked and watched and fantasized about killing ever since he was a young boy. Leonardo Borghese. Right in front of him. “You don’t fuckin’ remember me, huh? Been too long? Well, guess what? I remember you. I sure as SHIT remember you.”

Borghese tilted his head curiously. He pulled his chair forward and, putting his hands on his knees, leaned forward until his face was an inch away from Patton’s. Those cold eyes analyzed every feature of his, stopping when they got to his eyes.

Patton could see every eyelash of his, feel his breath on his face. He smelled something floral. “Well?”

Leonardo kept staring, not taking his eyes off his. “You have beautiful eyes,” he said finally. His gaze seemed, to him, to be hundreds of miles away. His answer infuriated him. “Quit fucking with me! Do you remember me, or not?”

“No,” he said quietly, and Patton’s gorge rose uncontrollably, threatening to make a sob burst from his throat.

“Fuck you, you fucking dago. Suck my cock.”

“Is that a request?”

His answer caught Patton off guard. “I–fuck you. Fucking queer. F-fuck–fuck–”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing. Didn’t the ancient Romans have that practice? And who were greater than the ancient Romans?”

Patton coughed a gob of blood onto his collar. He was going to die. The realization didn’t hit him at once–it washed over him, almost soothingly. He was going to die.

A soft hand curved around his cheek, index finger tracing the ridge of a purpling bruise.

“Do you know how little you mean to me, boy?” He said gently.

“F-f-f-f-”

Something inside Patton burst. He heaved out a ragged sob, his head hanging down to his chest.

Shoes squeaked, and Borghese slowly walked around the chair. A pair of hard, strong arms lifted Patton’s head and cradled it to a warm chest. His tears soaked into the soft fabric.

“Let it all out. Tesoro. Let it all out.”

“You killed them,” he sobbed, then screamed himself hoarse into his chest. Fingers threaded though his hair, and for some reason, Patton felt an odd comfort at his embrace. The deep bump-bump of his heart, the steady rise of his breathing, the smell, like the fields of wildflowers that had made their home in Greenhaven.

When Patton’s humiliated sobs trailed off, Leonardo stepped back, smiled, and punched him in the gut.

The wind left his body in a backwards gasp, and his torse erupted in pain as Leonardo smiled down at him. “Silly, weak boy. Men don’t cry. You’re not much of a man, are you?” Patton was so busy wheezing he couldn’t answer. Leonardo slammed his polished shoe into Patton’s ruined knee. “Men. You are all so pathetic. Women cry often and they cry easily. Are you a woman, Patton?”

Bullshit, said some part of him that floated above the pain. Candace never cried. She was already to go to bat for him. Candace… Candace… Bertha…

His tortured brain was sinking into the comfortable embrace of memory. The pain was gradually fading away. It was only when a hand grasped him between his legs did he jerk himself into consciousness.

Leonardo was watching him carefully, a smile still tinting his red lips. His hand gently grasped his length, slowly rubbing through the paterial or his pants, and the texture of the fabric suddenly felt rough against his sensitive skin.

“W-what are you–you–” Patton’s mind was scrambled.

“You have lovely features, Patton. Almost feminine. They remind me of someone I… cared deeply for. I think you would make a good woman. I think you would make a better woman than a man.”

Leonardo stepped back. Patton closed his eyes. The pain was receding, even in his knee, leaving him pleasantly dreamy. For a moment, in his mind, he saw a woman, her back to him as she washed dishes. For a moment he thought it was Candace until she turned around and smiled at him.

“Mommy…” he choked.

Something brushed his cheek, and he opened his eyes, startled. Leonardo was swiping a brush over his cheek, a contented look on his face. “What are you…” he rasped, but fell silent soon after.

Time was an illusion. He felt something touch the outsides of his eyes, his lips. And finally whe he saw the glint of a razor, he knew it was his end. He did not expect for it to glide over his upper lip.

“Look.” Leonardo was holding the mirror in front of him again

His moustache was gone. The makeup was applied delicately to his face, hiding everything but the bruises staining the edge of his face. His lips were done in Marilyn Monroe red, and his eyes were done in dark eyeshadow, making his green eyes all that brighter.

He really did look like a woman.

“See? Aren’t you beautiful?”

Long pale fingers slid over his face, cradling the bruised skin covered with a false layer of beauty. Leonardo kissed him deeply, and despite the revulsion instinctively rising in him, Patton smelled those flowers, and then he was a boy, he was in Massachusetts again.

When Leonardo pulled back, the only sounds in the basement were his low, heavy breaths. It was hard to breathe. Leonardo had snapped some of his ribs. But he couldn’t feel the pain. He couldn’t feel anything. Only when Leonardo gripped him by the base of his cock and began to stroke him.

The warmth blossomed up his thighs, into his belly. Like sinking into a warm bath. His cock twitched under the skillful fingers, and his breathing became deeper. Even though… even with how sinful it was, it felt… it felt… he was welling up, ready to spill, and he was so caught up in his rapture he didn’t notice Leonardo take out the knife until it was too late.

“One last thing,” he murmured. “And you really will be perfect.”

The searing pain in his groin tore him out of the dreaminess, out of the pleasure, and back into the cold, empty basement he was in, alone with a maniac and miles away from anyone who loved him, and the scream was so loud a stray cow in a nearby field lifted her head and stared at the abandoned house, then lowered her head again and began to chew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for this. This was one of the worst chapters I wrote. Leonardo is a lot less merciful with Patton than he is with Patience.


	9. Patience/Sawyer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deleted scene/axed subplot. Patience/Sawyer.

Patience leaned forward, then paused. The sound of the Christmas party still buzzing around them, she whispered, “I… think I know who killed Leonardo’s father.”

Sawyer switched from suspicion to sharply focus his attention on her. “What?”

She looked over her shoulder. “I–I think that–" 

"Let’s go be alone for a moment.” Charles took her arm and escorted her away from the party, her hobbling heavily.

***

The room he took her to was a small sitting room with a mirror and carved wooden furniture. He locked it behind him.

“You say you know who killed Silvio. Do you have proof?”

“No, but I’m pretty sure.” She looked over her shoulder to make sure no one else was in the room. “I–I think Leonardo killed his father.”

Sawyer’s face tightened. “There’s no way Leonardo would kill his father. I knew both of them, father and son, and he wouldn’t–”

“Kill the man who forced him to eat until he vomited when his cooking wasn’t to his liking? Killed the man who abused him his whole life?” She countered. “I wonder, Charles. Just how aware were you of how old Silvio treated his boy?”

In the dim light of the lamp, his face seemed wan. He looked away. “How Silvio raised Leonardo was none of my business.”

“Think about it. Whoever entered the house had to have a key. Leonardo was due to return from university THAT SAME NIGHT. In criminal justice school, we call that motive and opportunity.”

“In law school we call that a coincidence,” he countered. “I don’t know what angle you’re gaining for, Winslow, but I’ll have none of it.” He tried to pass her, but she sidestepped him.

Her fists were clenched. “Why don’t you _believe me?_ I know he did it and you do too!” She stepped towards him. “First you refuse to help me when I’ve been _kidnapped_ , and now you’re refusing hard evidence that I’m throwing in your face! You need to get me out of here! He’s a lunatic and he killed his father and _we both know it!”_

He tried to elbow her away, but she lost balance and grabbed onto him for support. 

“You’re a snake, Sawyer,” she hissed in his face, anger mounting until she saw red. Her fists crumpled the fabric of his expensive suit. “You’re a hypocrite and a liar and the world would be a better place without you _and_ Leonardo." 

Their faces were an inch away, close enough so that she could see the small creases on the edge of his eyes betraying his age, his hazel irises with a ring of vivid green around the pupil, his pale lips and sharp, handsome chin. And impulsively, she did the thing she knew would hurt him the most.

She kissed him.

His whole form radiated with shock. He tried to pull away, but she wound her fingers through his salt-and-pepper hair and held him firmly in place. She kissed him deeply, their faces pressed so close that she could smell his aftershave and the newness of his recently-bought tie. 

The door creaked.

She pulled away, but not early enough to see Leonardo’s face settle into something blank. 

He was standing in the doorway, one arm on the side of the doorjamb, the other on the knob. His face was devoid of emotion, blank in a way she had seen only once before, when he had been standing behind her with a gun.

"Leonardo,” said Sawyer rapidly, his voice shaking and his glasses askew, “It’s not what you think. She forced me–”

“Well, how lovely is this?” Said Leonardo, making her jump. He now had a bright smile on his face, and his eyes twinked with mirth. “I apologize for interrupting. Please, go ahead. I am assuming that your little kiss was just the beginning.”

“Leo–”

“In fact, why don’t we all go upstairs together? We all like each other fine, don’t we? My bed is big enough to fit all three of us.”

Charles looked a little relieved at his jolly attitude. “Really?”

“No.” Leonardo kept the smile, but his eyes were hard as glass.

Patience looked at the floor, heart thudding so hard it felt like it was in her throat. She didn’t want to meet his eyes.

“My best friend,” said Leonardo, his voice sapped of emotion, “And my fiancee.”

She heard the click of his saddle shoes as he stepped forward. “My best friend. And my fiancee.”

“I swear to you, you _are_ my best friend, Leonardo. You’re my dearest friend in the world. I would never do this to you. She forced herself on me, she–”

“I think,” Leonardo said quietly, “You’ve worn out your welcome, Charles.”

Sawyer looked like he was about to say something else, then his tight mouth slackened and he looked away, shoulders slumped in something resembling regret.

Wordlessly, he stepped past Leonardo and left through the door. As it clicked shut, he left the two alone.

Tears started in Patience’s eyes as he stepped forward, caging her against the wall in the small room.

“How long?” He said softly.

“This was t-the first time. But I didn’t–he made me do it, Leonardo! He–”

His hand clamped over her mouth, and he lowered his lips to her ear. “Get upstairs. Now. Take your dress off, and get into bed.”

Tears of fear streaked down her face as his hand tightened, crushing her lips against her teeth, but the silent, livid betrayal in his voice made her cry harder.


	10. When God Wasn't Watching

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As requested, an AU if Patience had been a young girl when she started her crusade–and everyone stayed their canonical age.
> 
> This is dark. Major warnings for underage sexual abuse.

15-year-old Patience Winslow stepped onto the train platform and into the rest of her life.

She looked around at the towering skyscrapers, mouth agape. She had never seen a building higher than the town hall in Greenhaven, and just looking at the tops of the steel behemoths made her dizzy. Someone stumbled into her and shouted a “Watch it, kid!” As her first introduction to Garland City life.

She stumbled to the side and checked her pocket. The wads of money she had stolen from Uncle Jim, a banker, were still there. They would only last her a couple pf days, but a couple of days was all she needed. Once she accomplished her goal, she did not intend on living on this earth anymore. She would be with her mommy and daddy. She would have avenged them, and they would be so proud of her, and the would be together forever, away from the cold house and the cold stares of her aunt and uncle and the cold laughs from her classmates and the cold, cold nights she cried herself to sleep. She would be warm again. She would be loved. 

Patience set out onto the cobblestone streets, money safely wadded in her pocket, and looked for a pawnshop.

***

The handle of the gun was cold in her hand. She practiced flicking off the safety and firing it behind a junkyard until the security guard told her to leave. 

She spent a chunk of her money at a hotel and consulted her meager newspaper records. One thing she was sure of was that Leonardo legally owned a nightcub called the Harp. She had seen its opening in a blurb in the paper. Her plan was simple. Fatal, but simple. But even the prospect of it made her sick to her stomach. Several times she wanted to back out, buy a ticket back to Greenhaven. But go where? Back to her aunt and uncle, who despised her? Back to loneliness and isolation and the yawning, indifferent chasm of her life?

She had made her bed and she was going to lie in it.

***

Little Italy scared her. The chaotic movement, the clamor of different languages, the bellows of the street vendors–they all unnerved her. She blended in well–with her schoolgirl uniform and hair in twin braids, she passed well as any of the littay of other girls coming back from Catholic School, lingering at Ice Cream parlors to meet their friends. Except Patience’s intentions were much more sinister.

A butcher tossed a bucket full of slop and entrails into the sewer, and some splattered on her mary janes. She wrinkled her nose and jumped onto the sidewalk.

She took turn after turn, even as the day turned into evening and as the population of the street turned more and more into shady adults instead of the clash of old and young. She was starting to believe she had become lost when the spangled neon lights of the Harp came into view.

It was a popular nightclub, with burlesques every night and a bar reputed to be the best in Garland City–according to the review she had read in the paper. She knew they wouldn’t let her in the front door, so she slipped down the alley. A dumpster full of stained napkins, broken glass, and vile pieces of discarded reeking trash from the backstage of the burlesque lay against the back of the nightclub. She tried the heavy metal door leading into the back of the club. No luck. 

The girl retraced her steps, feeling her way along the building. She tried the edges of the windows, shoving upward with the heels of her hands, and finally, one slid open a crack.

Patience pulled it up and scrambled Through the window. She was a small girl even for her age and had to pull herself up before she tumbled over the window sill. She collapsed on the ground in a heap, breathing heavily. She appeared to be in some sort of storage room, with cases of whisky stacked against the wall, as well as other alcohols she could not name.

She tried the door and it slid open. The hallway was quiet they appeared to be well stocked for the night. Keeping to the shadows, she crept down the hallway.

The lights and laughter echoed from one end. She wondered where he would be–as a big-shot nightclub owner, would he be living it up on the floor or doing whatever nightclub owners did in the office? She took a chance and slunk down the hallway, away from the racket and nearer to the back of the club.

A janitor clomped by, nearly missing her, and she flattened herself against the wall. The metal of the gun was cold against her breast, the handle knocking against her ribcage every time she moved. Her sweat was so slick she was worried that it would slide down her shirt and clatter on the floor.

She peeked down another passage–this one was lined with chattering women and half-open doors leading to what looked like dressing rooms, so she went down the opposite one. It was empty except for a single room at the back of the hall, with light peeking out from the bottom of it. She reached into her blouse and gripped her gun, and moved forward.

***

Patience stood there, unwilling or unsure what to do, then heard a voice. That smooth, distant purr made every hair on her body raise, then sent her mind into such a fury she burst through the door and aimed her gun.

A man was standing with his back to the door, a receiver held against his curly blond head. As he turned around his eyes sparked with a distant surprise but then went back to the sea blue impassiveness that she had seen only once before but remembered as clear as day. He slowly put the receiver down.

“And you are?” He said politely.

The barrel was trembling in her grip. “I–I’m–” Her brain was failing her. “I’m–don’t you know who I am? You killed my parents!”

“Child,” he said quietly. Then, “Sweetheart. You must have made a mistake.”

Her head was pulsing. Her adrenaline was rushing. “I haven’t. I know who you are. I saw you. I saw you pull the trigger–”

His eyes were dark, gentle and sympathetic. “Listen. Little one. I have never murdered anyone in my life. I own this nightclub. I inherited it from my father. Whatever you went through–sweetheart, I’m so sorry, it has nothing to do with me. Please put the gun down.” He held out his hand, the light glinting off his gold rings.

Her eyes were filling up with tears. She wanted to pull the trigger. She wanted to so bad. But his voice was so gentle. So honest.

Her brain sparked a distant apprehension, just the faintest shadow, and her barrel lowered a notch.

***

Before she knew it, she was facedown on the sofa, face pressed against the red velvet. There was a crushing weight on top of her, and her arms were pinned behind her back by a hand.

She was abruptly flipped over to face a cool, composed visage, eyes cold as chips of ice. With one hand he pinned her arms down, with the other he held her revolver, barrel aimed right between her eyes. “Tell me who sent you.” His voice as cold and detached as if he were reporting the weather through a radio. “The di Scarpettas? Was it Cardinale?”

Patience blinked. The reality of her situation had yet to catch up to her. “No one. I did. I’m here to murder you. You murdered my parents!” She began to struggle, but his crushing grip stilled her.

“Child, didn’t your parents ever tell you not to lie?” He cocked the barrel.

“No!” She snarled back, the terror creeping down her spine and yet the fury eclipsing that. She yanked her arms. “Let go! I’ll kill you! I’ll kill–”

He was staring down at her, looking contemplative. Something about her seemed to convince him. His eyes were opaque, red mouth an impassive line.

“Beautiful,” he said softly. 

She blinked as he ran a finger down the tear tracks on her cheeks, and hovered around the edge of her pale, angry green eyes, trying desperately not to give out to fear. He ran his fingernail around her eyes, rubbing the tears off and staring intently, perversely into her pupils.

“You would have been her age,” he said.

He shifted on top of her, and suddenly his crushing weight was on her chest, and she smelled something flowery, like her aunt’s perfume cabinet. Patience’s whole body was trembling against his, her anger finally giving way to fear, and when he spoke his next words, a thrill of pure terror shot through her body.

“My father preferred younger girls,” he whispered in her ear. “Said he liked how they wiggled and screamed. Said it made them tighter.”

His lukewarm breath against her ear, the wet lave of his tongue on her skin, and his finger beneath the skirt of her pinafore made vomit heave in her throat, and she began to struggle, began to wail, fighting with all her might _please if I can just get out I’ll run I’ll jump through the window of the storage room I’ll leave Garland City I’ll never come back–_

She felt a smile curl against the nape of her neck. “Don’t be scared, _dolcezza._ I’ll be gentle.”

***

The room was a haze of black and red, the the black lacquer of the floor, the black glint of the typewriter, the red softness of the sofa, and the burning, wet, stinging red of–

She looked down between her legs. Blood had began to seep through the dark green threads of her skirt. The place between her legs was a mass of red and pain, cut open by a knife–or whatever he has used, but it felt like a knife, a knife of flesh and veins that left her insides throbbing and smeared.

He was talking to another man in soft Italian. The other man was tall and rough-looking with a five o'clock shadow and thick brown hair, wearing a trenchcoat. He kept glancing over to her worriedly. _“Leonardo, è solo una ragazza.”_

 _“Non è successo niente, Giuseppe,"_ was Borghese’s smooth reply. 

The door slammed open. "What’s going on? I heard the commotion. Are you all right, Leo?” barked another man, shorter, with black hair and wire-rimmed glasses. His gaze slid over her, and the cold, hostile look he shot her made her spine stiffe.

Every cell of her body was screaming at her, the pain and fear and agony all coming together in a sort of disbelief. All she could do was stare blankly at the widening pool of blood between her thighs that betrayed her torn insides.

They were speaking louder, still in Italian, and she only startes when Leonardo put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “What’s your name, sweetheart?”

“Patience,” she said automatically. “Winslow.”

“What’s a beautiful little girl like you doing out here? Surely we can call someone to come and get you?”

Patience looked at his kind face blankly. She thought of her aunt and uncle. She shook her head.

“Oh, dear,” he said, but his smile was widening. “Poor thing. _Dolce ragazzina.”_

More words. She wasn’t sure what the men were saying now, whether they were speaking English or Italian. Her mind was as blank as a pane of glass. She was retreating into a space only she knew, a space where she didn’t have to feel or think, a space where she didn’t have to hurt, just feel comfortably numb.

A hand gently gripping her arm led her out of the room and down the hallway. If she had been in a more conscious state of mind she would have noticed that the door to the store room was open and she could have made a break for it. But instead she let herself be led to a limo, the back door opening into smooth leather seats. 

The seats felt good against her legs but when she sat down, she erupted in pain again. Her insides throbbed. The bloodstain was the size of a silver dollar now.

Borghese slid down next to her, the man with the glasses next to him. He slammed the door. The man driving was the man in the trench coat. She sensed a tenseness from him that didn’t let up, even after he gunned the engine and set off down the street.

The other man was still eying her coldly. It didn’t make sense. She was hurt, couldn’t he see that? Why was he still staring at her with his resentful, mistrustful black eyes? Why–

Borghese had leaned down to her. She was pressed against the driver’s door, hunched over, and his entire body brushed hers as he leaned down.

“Have you had your monthlies yet?” He asked quietly, so quietly that she wasn’t sure anyone else could hear. They certainly acted as if they didn’t.

She nodded once. Her period had come for the first time last year, in the school showers, to the mockery and derision of the other girls.

“We’re going to have to pay very, very close attention to your monthlies over the next few weeks.”

She stared at him in a childish sort of confusion. His profile was elegant, handsome, like the movie stars in the theater posters she had crushed on. High cheekbones, blue eyes and a voice like cream.

“If you miss one of your monthlies, do you know what will happen? Do you know what will happen to your body? You’ll grow a baby, right _here.”_ He pressed a finger just above her skirt, on her midriff.

The thought of having a baby was so alien to her it suddenly awaked a sort of consciousness. She started into reality. She looked into his eyes.

His voice was no longer like cream. It was like spoiled milk. “I’m going to teach you a lot about the human body over these few days. Especially about the reproductive system. We’ll learn a lot together, oh we will, and I’ll be honored to be your teacher.”

The car idled at a stoplight, and her fingers scrabbled for the door handle. She caught it and fell backwards, skidding onto the concrete, scrambling up, legs bleeding, and _running._

She dodged car after car, sometimes being missed by an inch. The beeps and curses echoed behind her as she stumbled onto the sidewalk.

Her legs were scraped, her breaths coming in high, winded gasps as she went out in a full-put sprint down the street. There were signs hung in an unfamiliar language, shady men in broad-brimmed hats and suspenders lining the street. Immodestly dressed women flitted between them, garish makeup caking their face. The crossroads were a confusing jungle of storefronts, chairs, shouting men, and potholed streets.

She was so distracted, so panicked, she crashed into someone and sprawled on the ground. The heels of her hands scraped the sidewalk where she wrenched them out to break her fall.

A drunken, red-rimmed gaze stared down at her. “Hey, kid. What’s the matter?”

Patience tried to struggle up, lost her balance by the jolt of pain between her legs, and collapsed again. She didn’t know where she was. She didn’t know who these people were. She was suddenly, completely alone, and even as the man dragged her upright, she heard that silky voice that had come to signal her doom. “There you are, sweetheart. Don’t wander away again, now.”

Patience caught her feet and stumbled away. “Don’t come near me!” She screamed, grabbing the attention of everyone on the street. She wrapped her arms around the man’s waist. “Don’t let him take me,” she sobbed. His waist was lean yet muscular under her arms, and reminded her of her father. That thought made her cling closer.

The drunk man beside her was dark-haired, in a sleeveless shirt more suited to a laborer than the shabby suits most men on the street wore. His face was angular and pitted with scars that resembled the ones of her classmate Joey White, who’d had smalllpox as a child and had been the merciless victim of teasing for it. “Back off, Leo Angelino. I don’t think this kid wants anything to do with you.”

Borghese was standing in the sidewalk, flanked by his two men. In his neatly tucked suit and tie, he looked more professional than everyone on the street combined. “Salvatore, the child stole something from me. This is none of your business. Let me deal with her and I will let her go.”

If Salvatore was just being contentious, it changed as he looked down at her. She wasn’t sure whether his gaze had found the spot of blood on her skirt, or whether her generally ruffled appearance roused something in him.

“This ain’t your fuckin street. Get out of here before I make you get out.” People were moving to arm him at each side, people from his group of friends and from across the street. This was not Leonardo Borghese’s territory, and by his body language, he knew it. His face was a mask as he stepped back. “Well. Have a lovely night out, Sal.”

As they retreated, Salvatore’s body was stiff as he saw them off, a venomous look on his face. When the crowd dispersed, he looked down at Patience, and his face softened. “Hey, kid. Are you all right? What did he–”

He wasn’t able to finish his sentence as Patience had flung herself away from him and began running again, desperate to get as far away as possible from this hellish place and these hellish people, from everything–ignoring the indignant yelling, the confused looks after her.

Patience collapsed in a tenement neighborhood somewhere, too exhausted to continue. She felt her pocket and realized that her money was gone–it had to have fallen out during the chase. She had nothing now, no home, no gun, no money. 

Nothing but a burning, aching pain between her legs that wouldn’t go away.


	11. When God Wasn't There

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coninuation of When God Wasn't Watching.

Patience woke up with her neck stiff and a bad taste in her mouth. She wondered why she had awakened before a broom nudged her head and a sardonic brogue greeted her ears. “Luvvy, you’re sleeping on my back door. Are you lost?”

Patience sat up, and the immediate sting of pain between her legs made her wake fully. “No. Sorry ma'am, I’ll be–getting on my way.”

“Surely you want to wash your face. You’re all messy. Your braids look like twin rockets.”

“No, ma'am.”

“Yes, ma'am. You are coming in right now and washing up and having breakfast, and you are telling me how you got here and where you come from.”

***

Barbara had an Irish accent but an Italian last name. Nothing much made sense about her. But she was kindly and let Patience wash her face and hair in their basin, and even lent Patience her comb to brush out her long mousy hair. By the time she was done, a tall man with black hair and shaving cream all over his face came into the bathroom, startling her.

He looked uncannily like the drunk man from last night, but after she started stuttering apologies out and he kept looking at her confusedly, she realized he was someone else. She supposed all dagos looked the same.

“Honey, there’s a little girl in the bathroom!”

“She’s stayin’ for breakfast, Gabe!”

The air was warm in the house, and toys strewn around. A Howdy Doody mask and a baby doll were both lying facedown in the hall. It made her comfy for reasons she couldn’t explain–it was so difficult from her cold, methodical, organized aunt and uncle’s house. It looked like an actual home, and she didn’t want to leave.

The family–an eight-year old daughter (who immediately latched on to her) a son who spoke only Italian, and the two parents were sitting at the table, chattering loudly over a breakfast of eggs and buttered toast. She took her seat and began eating, noticing only now that she’d gone a day and a half without eating.

Barbara smiled at her as she scarfed down her eggs. “Sweetheart, your skirt is all dirty. Are you bleeding?”

Her words brought the memory of last night to the front of her mind, and suddenly the pain between her legs seared and she was retching, bent over the table.

“Sweetheart! Are you all right?”

“Lie down!”

“No,” she sobbed. “I want to go home. I’m sorry. Thank you–but I need to leave–”

The door slammed. “Is that breakfast I smell?” A swaggering, dark-haired man in a black suit came through the front door, reeking of booze. He was dark-haired, with a foxlike face and a sharp resemblance to Gabe. As his black eyes focused on Patience, they sparked with recognition. “Hey, kid! What the hell are you doing here?”

She tried to run past him, but he seized her arm. “Not so fast, squirt. You’re gonna tell me everything that happened last night and you’re gonna do it now.”

***

Seated on the sofa, she gradually broke down under their questioning, and began stuttering out her version of the night before. She had gone into the nightclub–she refused to say why–and Leonardo had been there, and he had done something bad to her. 

As soon as she had said the words _something bad_ , Gabe’s eyes widened and Salvatore’s fists clenched. Barbara’s voice became flat. “What did he do to you?”

“He–he just hurt me.” She was toying with the frayed edge of her sleeve. “A little bit. I swear, that’s all he did. Please let me go home. He didn’t do anything like–that!" She was stressed beyond belief, shredding her sleeve to ribbons.

She stood up, and Barbara Rose took her shoulder. "Do you want to go to the police?”

“What good will that do?” Scoffed Salvatore. “Leo Angelino fuckin owns the police, Porky.”

“Language!”

“Please can I leave now? I don’t wanna see the police. I don’t wanna talk about it any more. I just wanna go home.” Her voice sounded very small, but as she spoke they stopped arguing and looked at her.

“If that’s what you want, honey. How far away do you live?”

“I live in… in Greenhaven, Massachusetts.”

“That’s a whole state over. Sweetheart, take some money for a train ticket. I have work today, but Salvatore can take you to the train station. How about that?”

Wiping her eyes on her sleeve, she nodded.

***

Salvatore drove her to the train station–his car smelled like cigarettes and alcohol, and he played awful sounding jazz the whole way. When he escorted her and made sure she got her ticket, he bought her an ice cream and sat down next to her as they waited for the train.

The ice cream was hot fudge, her favorite, but it didn’t taste like anything to her. She felt queasy, and her insides ached. 

“Hey, kid.” Salvatore sounded contemplative. “You know, you don’t wanna talk about what happened. I get you. It’s hard. Especially for kids. Especially for girls.”

She stared at the soggy rim of her cone. A drop of vanilla ice cream was dripping down the side.

“I don’t like seeing kids hurt. Nobody does. So here.” He slid a napkin over the bench to her, and she unfolded it. It was a phone number.

“If you need anything–anything–if you’re having trouble, trouble with people, with anyone, really, if you’re having a hard time paying for college–and ESPECIALLY if you’re having trouble with that blond sunnuvabitch–you give me a call. Okay?” His voice turned gentle at that last word.

She stared at the smudged ink numbers, and felt a lump swell in her throat. She looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes. How was it possible that anyone could be this generous? Especially someone as intimidating as Salvatore? The cloying sweetness of her ice cream stuck to her tongue as she stammered, “I forgot to thank you for–for protecting me that other night.”

He snorted. “I just did what any decent person would do. The sad thing is? I know plenty of men who would have let him have you.”

The train whistled, and she jumped up. It had arrrived without her noticing. “Thank you, Mr. Mallozzi. You’re–a good man.” She paused, then threw her arms around his narrow shoulders. Then she joined the bustling crowd. 

When the train began to chug out of the station, she elbowed her way to the window and smooshed her face into the glass. Salvatore was still there, smoking a cigarette and chatting up a young blonde woman. She waved, and he caught her eye and waved back.

***

She let herself collapse in her seat. The leather was smooth under the backs of her legs. The throbbing had ceased somewhat.

Patience had never, in her whole life, been this glad to get home to her aunt and uncle. But just the thought of stepping into their cold, sparsely furnished townhouse filled her with a sort of relief she could only dream of. She wanted to go home and bury herself under her dark, cool covers and close her eyes and forget this ever happened. With every mile the train chugged, she was leaving behind what happened to her. She was leaving it behind forever.

***

She took a cab from Boston to Burlington, where her aunt and uncle lived. He dropped her off at the local diner, where she used the rest of her money for some oatmeal before she trudged home. By then it was late afternoon, and the sun beat down on her long chestnut hair. She struggled to wind them into braids as she passed the church, the grocery store, and the post office, putting her head down and hurrying past a giggling cadre of her classmates who pointed at her and talked behind their hands.

By the time she reached her street she almost wept with relief. As the three-story brown townhouse came into view she noted something unsettling–a black limousine parked in front next to her uncle’s Cadillac. In fear, she wondered if it was the police, or a private investigator–after all, she had taken off with a fair bit of their money. Would they send her to a correctional school for wayward young women? She’d heard horror stories about them.

Well, anything was better than living on the streets. She determinedly pushed the door open. “Aunt Gemma? Uncle Jim?”

What she saw stopped her in her tracks.

Aunt Gemma was wiping her teary eyes, and Uncle Jim was white as a sheet. As she opened the door, his face turned livid with anger. “You are in big trouble, young lady.”

But she barely heard him. She was staring at the last person seated at the table, who was the only one smiling.

Leonardo Borghese.

“Why don’t you sit down?” He said in a friendly tone, pulling out a chair.

She stood frozen, ice water traveling down her trembling legs. The place between her legs burned and seared. For one moment, she thought of turning and running, out the door, out of Burlington, out of this nightmare–

“Sit DOWN,” snapped her aunt, her voice piercing the horrified silence like a gunshot.

Instinctively Patience went to sit down, as far away from the third man as possible. She kept an eye on the seam of his pants, knowing what was beneath and how much it had hurt her.

“Mr. Borghese here said you tried to rob him,” said Aunt Gemma. “You–how could you do something like that? Do you know how serious this is?”

“I–I never–” her tongue was tripping over itself. “I didn’t–I didn’t do that!”

“Be quiet!” Snarled her uncle, his voice raising into a shout. “You’d best be grateful that Mr. Borghese isn’t pressing charges–”

“It’s fine, Mr. Garrett,” said Mr. Borghese. The man uncrossed his legs, still smiling that jovial smile. He was wearing a boater hat and a pinstriped waistcoat over a white shirt. His pants matched his coat, and he wore gleaming, well-shined saddle shoes.

His voice made shadows erupt in her mind. Just hearing it brought her back to that night. “A young woman, no parents, no friends in school–it’s often that they fall by the wayside, and it’s our duty to help them back to the path of righteousness.”

“Mr. Borghese has offered to do something very generous. He’s offered to take you to Garland City and pay for your education at St. Joseph’s Catholic School.”

Patience felt like she was on a roller coaster that stopped dead in its tracks. Her body was trying to catch up with her mind by the time she stammered out, “No. I won’t.”

“You will, because we’re fed up with putting up with you. We were within a hairs’ breadth of calling the police on you stealing money from us before Mr. Borghese talked us out of it.”

She cast him a look of fear. He was staring at her intently, his blue eyes gleaming with triumph and something else that made her shiver. 

“Go upstairs and pack your things. Right now. I never want to see you in this house again. After the generosity we showed you–taking you in after your parents’ death–and you repay us by stealing our money and running off.”

Mr. Borghese stood up. “Let me come and help her pack. I want to talk to her for a bit. She’s a wayward child, but a good one.” He took her hand and squeezed, and she tried to yank it out of his grip, but he wouldn’t let go, his grip feeling like iron.

He towed her up the stairs, and with every step Patience felt a sickening sense of doom heighten. There was only one room on the top of the stairs–hers–and he pulled the door open and ushered her in.

She stood in the corner of the room, eyes darting from the door to him as he took a seat on the faded quilt of her bed. His carefully manicured nail drew patterns on the embroidery as he kept his gaze on her. “Why are you frowning? Put a smile on that pretty little face, dolce ragazzina.”

“Shut up! I hate you! Why are you doing this? Leave me alone! You’re a murdering b-bastard and I–”

“Watch your language,” he said, his voice a modicum softer. “It’s very unladylike to swear. You’re going to have to learn that, living with me. There is going to be a lot you have to learn.”

She looked down. The floorboards were blurry, and realized there were tears welling in her eyes.

***

Patience folded her clothes carefully, keeping one eye on the blond back of Leonardo’s head as he carefully packed her belongings.

She hated him going through her meager possessions, but was too afraid to tell him to stop, in case he hurt her.

_He’s gonna hurt you anyway, darling. And there’s nothing you can do about it._

She heard a gentle chuckle on the other side of the room, and looked over to see Leo holding a box of newspaper clippings

Her anger overcame her fear. “Put that down!”

“Why dolce ragazzina, I had no idea you were this much in love with me! My my, how long have you been collecting these?” He was scanning her newspaper clippings of him, sharp blue eyes filled with mirth.

She tried to snatch them. “Give them back!”

He held them out of her reach, and with his other arm, drew her close. She was pressed against his body now, feeling his warmth, hearing his breathing and listening to the thump of his heart.

She shuddered, every molecule of her body wanting to recoil, but his strong arm kept her in place.

He slowly sat down and gripped her legs to spread them over his lap. Patience was panicking now. The thought that he had been IN her, had made her bleed and hurt, and now he was pulling her into a position where he could do it again, made her spine stiffen and her body begin to instinctively wriggle. “Let me go! Let me go! I’ll do anything. Please leave me alone. I'l never seek you out again, I’ll burn all my clippings, I’ll never go to Garland City again–”

“It’s a little late for that,” he whispered in her ear. “You’re my little girl now. Your aunt and uncle signed you over to me. I can and will do anything I want to you. How does that feel, Pazienza?”

Patience was crying now, repulsed and sick and wanting to just–just run away and hide. She hated his smell, sickly sweet like rotting flowers, and his voice, which was gentle but had nothing beneath it, no modicum of emotion. “Let go… you murderer, you r-r-r-”

“How does it feel that the man who killed your father is going to be your father from now on?”

She stopped struggling. “You knew all along,” she whispered. She felt him smile against the nape of her neck as his hand crept up her leg, his long, soft fingers brushing the inside of her thighs. 

“I remember it clear as day, as soon as you told me your name. Were you in the house when I pulled the trigger?”

Tears were streaming down her cheeks. She let her head thump against his shoulder. “I saw you. I watched you from the closet.”

“Tsk, what a shame. If I’d just seen you, we could have gotten started a lot earlier.” He nipped her nape, making her hunch her shoulders.

“Oh. Don’t cringe, sweetheart. It won’t be so bad living with me. I won’t ask you for much. And I’ll give you anything you want. How does that sound?”

“Then put a gun to your head,” she ground out, trying to keep the trembling out of her voice, “And pull the trigger.”

He laughed and let her slide off her lap. “Oh, I see we’re going to have problems. You’ll learn, and you’ll learn soon. You’re going to have a very different life with me. A _very_ different life.”


	12. God's In His Heaven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Continuation of When God Wasn't There and When God Wasn't Watching.  
> Warnings for major creepiness.

A neatly manicured finger ran down her homework, which was smudged and stained and scribbled over. The only sound in the room was the tick-tock of the clock.

Patience stood still, hands joined behind her back. She shifted from one foot to the other, waiting for the time to be over. He studied the paper, his porcelain face blank and passive, before he smiled and his dark blue eyes lit up.

He said, “Very good. Your fractions are improving.”

She heard him stand up and move over, and flinched as he pressed a kiss to her cheek. “You can go play outside for a while." 

***

When she had arrived in Mr. Borghese’s mansion, she had not been cooperative. She still wasn’t. But she was better.

At first he had taken away her belongings and locked her in a bedroom downstairs. He only entered in order to rape her, and after a while the timeless sun setting and rising blurred in her mind, and her loneliness got to her, and she promised to be good if he let her out. He smiled and did so, and she tread lightly around him.

She learned to be afraid of him, and fast.

When he took her out, he expected her to be his perfect little girl. She could growl and grouch as much as she wanted, but she had to smile for the cameras and lie down with him when he wanted to. The lying down was the worst part. It didn’t hurt as much as it did the first time, but it still made her sick and uncomfortable. She could barely sleep when he was breathing beside her. To make it better on herself, sometimes she pretended he was her father and cuddled close to him.

St. Joseph’s was better than high school, but that wasn’t saying much. The students ignored her, and the teachers treated her nicely because of her adopted father, but at least people left her alone. If she wanted to cry by herself in the gym room because Mr. Borghese had wanted to sleep with her early in the morning and she could feel his wet spend sleeping through her skirt during her classes, then people would leave her alone.

Church was worse. He kept her close to his side the entire time, monitoring her interactions with others. She hated being in the Church of the Holy Virgin–her old churches had been small, cozy, made of balsam wood and slowly burning candles, and she had known everyone there. Here, everyone seemed to speak a different language, and the congregation changed each week, although what didn’t change was that everyone seemed to know Mr. Borghese.

The first time she had been in confession, she was perplexed that Mr. Borghese didn’t give her any instructions, nor accompany her into the booth. But she spilled herself anyway. She told the priest that he forced her whenever he pleased, that he told her she would have his baby and that she was destined to be his housewife whether she wanted it or not. She even told the priest that she had seen him kill her parents–and her voice had broken and she had peered out of the shade at him, leaning against the church dome in his black suit, his hands behind his back.

She held an impossible hope that the Father had called the police, even through the long limousine ride back, and it was only when Leonardo turned the key to the lock of the front door did she realize what she had done wrong.

"There is not a single person you have met who does not answer to me,” he said softly. “And every word you told that priest enters my ears.”

The priest had seemed so nice. So sympathetic. His voice had even broken a few times. 

“He…”

“He will tell me everything.” He sat down on his armchair and spread his arms. “Give your daddy a kiss.”

She looked at him, rooted to the spot and fists clenched, and eventually, out of fear, climbed onto his lap.

He was warm and smelled flowery, a scent she had become to despise. He shifted her on his lap, settling in until her crotch snugged deeply into his own. He always liked her in this position. Right above his cock. 

“How long has it been since you had your monthly?”

There was that typical question. She lied and said, “I’m having it right now.”

“Bugiarda. You had it almost a week ago. Still trying to lie to me.”

He began to pull her skirt up. He liked it when she wore her uniform. It was neat–he ironed it every night–with a white blouse and a shirt skirt that reached just past her knees.

Patience wanted to cry. Big, wet, sobbing tears. But instead she pressed her face into his shoulder and let him do what he wanted.

When he finally let her go, she ached and throbbed. “Go to your room. I’ll come up later and bring you some cocoa.”

She did so without complaining.

***

The next day was a Monday. She was watching cartoons on the TV after school, her favorite, Rocky and Bullwinkle.

A man came in. Tall, stubble on his chin. He stated at her with a mixture of suspicion and sympathy. She recognized him. “Goose Eppy?”

“Giuseppe.” He sat down beside her, tan trench coat and all. He watched Rocky and Bullwinkle for a while, laughing at jokes she couldn’t understand. “So you live with him now?” He said. “Where are you from?”

“Massachusetts,” she muttered.

After an uncomfortable silence, he said, “Ah, Massachusetts. My family is Neapolitan.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“Pardon?”

“Neopolitan is made-up. It’s an ice cream, not a place.”

Giuseppe stared blankly at her, but was saved from answering by Leonardo entering the room. They spoke briefly in Italian, then he stood up and left her, leaving her to watch Rocky and Bullwinkle by herself, but with her ears pricked. 

Patience ran to the locked door, then pressed her ears against it. Their voices were fading as they left down the stairs. 

She went around the vast wooden mansion. It was far too big for her to explore, even if she had wanted to. But she he found a grate to the cellar hidden beneath a tall tuft of grass, and it was so rusted she pried it open and wriggled in.

The edges of the grates dug into her breasts, but she wriggled on, until she came to a wire air conditioning unit, which she peered through.

She saw a clean metal room. Like a veterinarian’s room. Giuseppe and Leonardo were talking to each other in Italian beside a metal wheeling cart. Something covered with a black bag was on it.

Patience narrowed her eyes. It smelled like disenfectant in there.

Kneeling was beginning to hurt. She had to sit with her knees together, or else she would hurt between her legs. He never gave her any time to heal.

Giuseppe pulled the black bag off with a flourish, and what Patience saw made her heartrate skyrocket. It was a human–naked, his face battered beyond recognition. It didn’t even look like a face. It was a mass of black and blue.

Patience pressed her hands over her mouth. She wiggled backwards until her knees reached the grass.

The face of the man kept flashing in her mind. She hugged her knees and looked back at the air conditioning grate. What had she gotten herself into?

***

Patience twisted her hands in her skirt. The waiting was making her nerves heighten. “Why does it have to kill the bunny?”

“Do you want a pet bunny?”

“No! I just don’t want the bunny to die!”

“Don’t you want to find out if you’re having a baby?”

“I do, but…” she hated the thought of living with the fear of having to drop out of school, but she liked bunnies.

The doctor, a man with a thick Santa Claus beard, came out. “The tests were negative.”

She wilted in relief. One cautious glance at Leonardo, and his mouth had tightened somewhat. “Very well. Thank you for running the tests, Heinrich.”

He had to meet a friend at a restaurant downtown. She wasn’t hungry, so he let her wander around the shops (“stay where I can see you”).

Patience wandered around, peering through a toy shop. Stuffed animals and train sets, little kid stuff. Leonardo kept her room well-stocked with those, like she was an eight-year-old or something. She was more interested in fashion magazines and singers like Frank Sinatra, to his trepadation.

The minutes ticked by, to her annoyance. How long was he taking? Stupid jerk was probably having one of his long-winded boring conversations that he had with his friends.

Patience turned a corner and something caught her eye.

Like a golden altar, it sat there. Blue painted eyes and pink quirked lips. An hourglass waist and a blue shoulderless dress. Fresh and vibrant and fashionable and so cool.

She couldn’t stop staring. When Leonardo came to look for her she was still staring.

“Can I get this?” She said. She never asked for anything, but she REALLY wanted this.

When Leonardo saw, his lips curled. “Don’t you want a baby doll instead? I’ll get you any baby doll you want.”

“No. I want this.”

“It’s too expensive,” said Leonardo, who was a millionaire. “Come on. We need to get home in time for dinner. I’ll take you here some other time.”

Leonardo towed her out, her still protesting, and she was sullen as she got in the car and headed home. He put on her favorite station and tried to sweet-talk her, but she ignored him.

Halfway home he slammed on the breaks and pulled into an alley.

Leonardo closed his hand around her jaw and yanked her face to look at him.

“You will never,” he said to her quietly, “Be like that Barbie doll. You will never be blonde. You will never have a boyfriend. You will never "hit the sunset strip” or whatever nonsense that is. Your destiny is to be a housewife and mother. My housewife and mother.“

Her eyes were watering at his iron-hard grip on her jaw. He put his mouth next to her head until his warm breath washed over her ear.

"You will never go to college. You will never be a police officer or lawyer like you keep whining about wanting to be. You will have a baby after you finish at St. Joseph’s, and you will be my wife like you were meant to be, as is the best you could have hoped for in your useless life. And you will be satisfied with it.”

He let her go, and she rubbed her jaw, tears starting in her eyes.

His voice turned soft. “You can have some ice cream when we get back, how does that sound?” He said. She started ahead, tears blurring her eyes like rain on a windshield.

She thought about Barbie, but the painted face seemed so far away now. Blond and smiling and happy, not the pale, freckled, trembling little girl in the passenger’s seat.

 _I guess he is right,_ some part of her whispered. _I’ll never be Barbie. I’ll never ride in a convertible or flirt or go to college._

_All I can do is dream._

***

The phone sat there, black and shiny. 

She had the napkin hidden under her mattress. She had memorized the numbers. She agonized and agonized, aware of the time ticking away, before she picked it up.

Leonardo was becoming discontented. She was not conceiving, and was due to graduate St. Joseph’s with honors. She had already had several scholarship offers. He had made her stay home from school several times during exams, to sleep with him and force his seed deep down inside her. She could see her life closing in on her, and so she strove in school, aching to attend a university, any university, as long as she could get away from him.

The cords to all the other telephones were disconnected. She knew this was the only chance she had.

Patience dialed the numbers, heart thumping. She was praying desperately for that rough, growly voice to answer, but a different voice spoke from the other end.

_“Pronto?”_

“Uh,” she said, startled at the unfamiliar voice.

_“Chi parla?”_

“I…”

 _“Who is this?"_ Growled the voice.

"I want to talk to Salvatore Mallozzi.”

_“Who do you think you are, to talk to the boss?”_

“I–”

The dial tone rang dully in her ear.

“Salvatore Mallozzi?” said a gentle voice beside her. “Just who do you think you’re talking to?”


	13. Dear God

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last part of the young!Patience chapters, following the previous "God" ones.

Patience’s legs knocked into each other as she backed up, reaching out to grip the side.

The tall, imposing figure of her adopted father loomed over her quietly, his eyes serenely dark in his face.

“Salvatore Mallozzi,” he said slowly, as if tasting venom on his tongue. “And what reason could you have to be speaking with _my enemy?”_

Her mouth was dry. He gripped her chin and forced her to face him. “I started to trust you,” he said, his voice dead quiet. “A year of living with me, and I started to trust you. Clearly that was the wrong decision.”

She began to cry, and he shifted his thumb to wipe her tears away. It reminded her of the first time he had looked into her eyes, his thumb soft on her cheek.

His hand went to her shoulder, then lower, to cup her breasts through her uniform, and then to slide down her hips, teasingly stopping just above the waistband of her skirt.

“Your body is becoming more mature,” he said softly. “Your hips, your breasts, your face. I can see you growing older. Everything except your womb, apparently. When will you give me a child? Are you… doing anything to prevent it?”

She was crying unashamedly now, as his hand tightened on her hip hard enough to bruise. “I’m not. Please, papa. I’m not, I swear. I don’t know what’s going on–”

At the sound of _papa,_ his grip relaxed. She heard him sigh. “Do you not like living with me? Is that why you tried to call someone?”

She wanted to say _I hate you, I hate living with you, I wish you were dead,_ but she knew she stood on a precarious thread, so she sobbed, “I do–I do like living here. I just–sometimes I feel like getting away from you. I can’t help it.”

He paused, and something in his face settled, his eyes taking a faraway cast. His face slackened. “I understand,” he said simply.

He ruffled her hair. “Dinner will be ready soon. Afterwards, go upstairs and I’ll brush your hair.” She knew what the veiled meaning behind _I’ll brush your hair_ was, and it carried with it a resigned sense of doom.

***

Patience threw the baseball at the stone wall, and it made a thud as it hit. It bounced right back into her hands.

Mindless activities like this kept her mind off the realities of her life. She could do it for hours, repeating and repeating, her brain a dull buzz, until Leonardo would call for her. 

A hand caught her ball. “Shouldn’t you be doing something more useful?”

She went to glare at the dark-haired, glasses-wearing visage of her second least favorite person in the world. “Give the ball back, Stefano.”

“My daughter knew how to wash windows by the time she was half your age. The outer windows are filthy, why don’t you get off your lazy bottom and make yourself useful to your father?”

“Give me the ball back!”

He threw it back, and she caught it to her chest. “I don’t know why he bothers keeping you around. If I were him I would have dumped you off at an orphanage the first time you showed me lip.”

Her eyes stung with tears. _I’m not useless. I have a scholarship._ She heard Leonardo call for her distantly, and turned to Stefano just as the sound of Leonardo’s footsteps started to approach.

She kicked the older man hard in the shin. He squawked in surprised pain and clutched his leg, then recovered just in time to lunge at her just as Leonardo arrived past the grove of trees.

“What are you doing, Stefano?” Leonardo’s sharp voice made Stefano let her go. “She-”

“Stefano said I needed to be taught a lesson about obeying you,” said Patience loudly. 

“I’ll be the judge of that, Stefano,” said Leonardo, his voice soft yet icy. “It would be best if you took your leave.”

Stefano’s mouth was gaping like a fish, but he snapped it shut and glared at her before leaving. When Leonardo wasn’t looking Patience stuck her tongue out at his back.

He led her inside where the staunch, tall figure of Giuseppe Benevento was standing with one hand in his pocket, the other carrying a carpet bag.

“Are you staying for dinner, Joe?” Asked Patience, using his English name. She liked Giuseppe. Well, she didn’t really like him, but compared to Leonardo, Stefano, and the rest of Leonardo’s “friends” he was much more tolerable. He would drive her to school sometimes when Leonardo or the chauffeur couldn’t.

“I suppose I can. I’ll be talking to your father late into the night.”

Leonardo smiled. “Well, that’s excellent. I know you love my spaghetti bolognese.”

In the dining room, Patience sat fiddling with her napkin while Giuseppe smoked a cigarette, occasionally stubbing it out on a star-shaped marble ashtray.

“Your school is going well?” He broke the silence with one of his canned questions.

“I got a scholarship to New York University,” she said listlessly.

“Congratulations. When will you be graduating?”

“Next year,” she said. _I’m never going to use this scholarship. I’m never going to go to New York University. I’m never going to leave here._

The polished wood walls seemed to be caging her in. Something inside her young brain told her she would live and die here, and that made her want to scream and cry.

She tilted her head to look at Giuseppe. He was large and gruff, and said little. He was Leonardo’s deputy, his “underboss” and he did his job well. Very well. 

_Maybe,_ she thought, _maybe he has cracks in his exterior. Cracks I can worm myself into. He’s a man, after all._

_“_ Are you married, Joe?” She said, pushing her chair back and crossing her legs under her short skirt. She subtlely shifted her skirt up her thighs. Leonardo liked it when she did that.

“Yes,” he said shortly. “Seventeen years.”

“That’s a long time. You must be getting bored of her. Do you still sleep in the same bed?”

He looked over at her, and his forehead crinkled. “We–that’s none of your business.” his voice was flat. “Why do you ask?”

“Well,” she said throatily, trying to sound like the lounge singers she saw on TV, “I make you… less lonely.”

His frown deepened as he eyed her. 

She shifted her chair closer and touched his knee, sliding her hand over the rough cloth. “I can do things for you your wife never dreamed of. I know all about pleasing men.”

He was frozen, eyes flickering to the closed door.

“With my mouth or–with any part of my body. I can be your Lolita.” She thought back to the book she had read on Leonardo’s bookshelf. She had to put it back when she was halfway done because of how much it disturbed and reminded her of herself. “All you have to do is take me out of here.” She boldly gripped between his legs, squeezing and rubbing him gently.

“No,” he said firmly, getting up and moving a seat away. She watched in him despair, her way of escaping firmly rejecting her. “You are my daughter’s age. You are Leonardo’s daughter. This is inappropriate. I–” for a moment something like regret and sympathy passed his face, but then it was gone to be replaced by his steely, gruff exterior.

“I’m sorry you feel this way. But I will not and can not reciprocate. Please don’t make this hard for both of us.”

A wave of shame washed over her. She stared at the tablecloth, tears in her eyes as she waited for Leonardo to arrive with the dishes.

***

“Christmas Party?”

Patience looked up from where she was chopping tomatoes. Her father wiped his hands on his apron and dumped the pork snippings into the the pot. “Yes. I’ve held it every year. You missed it last year because you weren’t home with me, but this year I promise you’ll be the belle of the ball. I’ll tailor you the most beautiful, expensive dress. It will be so grand and opulent, you’ll love it.”

_You missed it last year because you weren’t home with me._ Not, _you missed it last year because you weren’t living here._ As if she hadliving there all along. Leonardo inexorably considered her role and home to be here, under his thumb, nowhere else.

“Okay,” she said. Her mind had hardened during the year, become more calculating. This could be her way out of here. She couldn’t give up, and it was becoming more important day by day while her womb was still empty. If she got pregnant, it was over for her. She was living on borrowed time.

***

The dress was mint-green and ruffled at the bottom, and square at the bosom. It definitely wasn’t made to take advantage of her womanly curves (or what little she had of them). He had tailored it for her over several agonizing weeks, forcing her to stand as still as a ballerina as he slid needles inches away from her skin.

“Gorgeous,” he said. “Matches your eyes.” He slid his hands down her dress, cupping her bare shoulders. 

“I look like a little girl.”

“You are a little girl. My little girl.” He kissed her ear and made her shudder. “Are you ready?”

She nodded, still staring at herself in the mirror.

He led her out into a wave of noise, bright lights and chatter. For a moment she instinctively clutched his arm as a dozen eyes turned on her. “Oh, this must be your daughter!” Said a man with a lumpy nose, a dark-haired woman at his side. “I don’t think I’ve met her yet.”

“She’s been focusing on school. She’s a good girl.” He rubbed her shoulders. 

The man beamed. “You’re a sweet little thing, aren'tcha?”

Patience looked away. “Thank you.”

“What a sweet girl. I can’t believe she’s your daughter,” said a man in a fedora, cradling his cheek with a crafty smile on his face. She gritted her jaw. _Adopted daughter._ “Thanks.”

“Oh, be more social, Patience,” said Leonardo.

“Can I please get something to eat?” She asked, hating all the eyes on her.

“You may. But be gracious and kind and have nice manners.”

“Yes, papa.”

She scampered away, acutely aware of her role as the only girl in the ballroom. A cadre of portly mafia wives set upon her and pinched her cheeks, oblivious to her cries of “I’m sixteen! I’m sixteen!" 

With much difficulty, she made her way to the food table, where she plopped herself down to think.

A silver-haired figure, serving himself casserole, looked down at her. "Why the long face, Patience?” She recognized him with a scowl. Charles Sawyer was always skulking around their house. She hated how condescending he was, and avoided him as much as possible. “None of your business.”

“Perhaps you should lie down.” He had such a wheedling way about him, like he was talking to a little girl instead of a teenager. “Put some color in those cheeks”

Her cheeks, already red from being pinched, flushed harder. “Mind your own business!”

Sawyer clucked his tongue and moved on, and she resumed watching the crowd. She tried to name all the men she saw, but other than the ones who came around the house and who she saw Leonardo with, she recognized none of them.

She had distantly gleaned a sort of shadowy awareness of the structure of the mafia–there were sects, and they didn’t always get along with each other.

Leonardo kept her isolated and protected, never answering any of her questions and leading her to occasionally learn what she could from eavesdropped conversations with his men. A certain family called Di Scarpetta always seemed to be causing them trouble.

She saw a flash of black hair, and froze.

Her head throbbed. _No way. He can’t be here. He can’t–_

The brown-haired girl jumped off the seat and ran into the crowd, heart thumping, eyes watering, pushing desperately, until the figure resurfaced in her sight. He was dressed in an elegant suit, talking to another man. The high collar of his suit wasn’t enough to hide the livid scar on his throat. With his coal-black eyes and slicked-back hair, he cut an imposing figure, but Patience had never been so glad to see him. She hit him head-on. _“Salvatore!”_

He stumbled and stiffened, but when he saw her, his face went slack in disbelief. “Patience? What are you doing here?”

She was crying. “Oh my god. Oh my god!”

_“Ciao,"_ he said to the other man swiftly, then turned back to her. "Tell me, what are you doing here?”

“Leonardo Borghese is forcing me to live with him,” she said, clutching his sleeves. “He does–oh, he does such awful things to me! Please, Salvatore, you must get me out of here!”

“Are you–are you that long-lost daughter he found?” Realization was dawning across his face.

“I’m not his damn daughter! I’m not related to him! He forced me into this, and you have to get me out of here, he wants me to do more for him, vile things–”

_“Pazienza,"_ said a liquid voice. "Are you making friends with Salvatore? How charming.

***

Salvatore hooked an arm around her shoulders, pulling her protectively towards him. "Leo Angelino. You son of a bitch. _Stronzo!_ What the hell have you been doing to her?” His face was a mask of rage

Leonardo’s face was placid, but he was standing entirely too close Salvatore. He said “Let’s not make a scene here. All the families are here, a confrontation would–aggravate the atmosphere.”

“Sick fucking pedophile,” he hissed. “I should shoot you.” His fists clenched.

“There are my men all around you, Salvatore,” he said quietly. “Think twice.”

Salvatore’s eyes flicked around, and somewhere in his brutish subconscious something sparked. His grip on her slackened. “I’ll be taking my leave early.”

“Please don’t go,” she begged, clinging onto him. He unwillingly detached himself–not before giving her a comforting squeeze–and made for the door. She watched him go with tears in her eyes.

She smelled cologne as Leonardo shifted beside her. “Perhaps you’d like to go upstairs and rest, _dolcezza."_ His voice was gentle, but had enough of a veiled threat that she obeyed immediately.

***

Alone in his (their) room, she shivered for hours until his soft footsteps echoed up the polished stairs.

He emerged from the door, dressed in his tuxedo, and when he saw her, he smiled. "Your hair is so messy. Let me comb it.”

She shivered as he combed the tangles out of her hair, damp with sweat. His proximity made her mind rebel, want to run screaming. “You’ve been very naughty, _dolcezza_. Talking with Salvatore Mallozzi. Just what is your relationship, I wonder?”

She said nothing.

“Not going to talk?”

She squeezed her eyes shut.

“I have ways of making you talk, _dolcezza."_ His arm curled around her neck, porcelain fingertips lightly brushing her skin. She shivered, but said nothing.

"Keep your secrets, then. I will find out about them in due time.”

He stood up and loosened his cummerbund. His pants were loose, buckle undone.

“Sweet thing, let’s celebrate Christmas together. We’ll make a baby, a Christmas baby. We can name it Noelle.”

Patience began to loosen her dress, acutely aware of him undressing behind her. It would be another night full of pain, a night that lasted far too long and left her crying and sleepless half the night.

The next few days were fraught with tension. 

Leonardo kept silent about her and Salvatore, never speaking of it. She detected an underlying tension in the house, but Leonardo kept cheerful, dropping her off at school, helping with her homework, and making dinner. 

For a moment, she almost relaxed. 

And one night, when her homework was done and she was watching a late-night program, Leonardo called out to her in his lyrical voice.

“Patience. Come here. I want to show you something.”

Frustrated, she turned the TV off. She grudgingly tramped into the next room, and then the cigar room. It was richly furnished, with a glass liquor cabinet and velvet-upholstered furniture–she was very familiar with it.

In the middle was a man, being forced into the ground. For a moment her heart thrilled and she thought it was Salvatore–before he lifted his head up and he saw the wanness and softness of his face.

“Gabe?” She said, breathless with disbelief.

He looked at her, eyes not registering realization until it flashed in his eyes. 

Leonardo leaned back against the sofa, glass of liquor in his hand. A small smile teased his face. “Do you see what happens when you disobey your father, _Pazienza?_ You shouldnever contacted Salvatore. And now an innocent is paying for your mistake.”

To her horror, Giuseppe, who was standing next to him, procured a knife and slid it around his throat. Patience tried to catch his eye, begging him for mercy, but he averted his gaze, something akin to shame in them.

“Give him a little cut, Giuseppe.”

The silver knife sliced down, gouging a thin wound in the side of his cheek.

“Please not him! He didn’t do anything! He has a family–don’t–”

The knife bit further into his face, and he opened his mouth to wail. “Patience! Please help me! My Barbara–my Gina–I don’t want to die!”

“Stop! Stop! _Papa!”_

_“Papa, papa._ I do love it when you call me that. But-” he leaned closer until his lips were right beside her ear. “We’re going to be married parents before too long. How about you start calling me a pet name, one a wife has for her husband. "My mother used to call me Leonello, little lion,”

He was staring at her with a fixed, raw gaze.

“I’ll do anything,” she whispered. “Just don’t hurt him.”

“Leave us,” instructed Leonardo to Gabe and his soldiers.

When they were gone, he turned to her with a wild gaze. “Leonello,” she whispered.

A ghost of a smile flitted across his face. His eyes were lidded. “Good girl.”

_**“** Leonello. Leonello. _I love you so much.”

He was breathing rapidly now, the expression on his face one that she had never seen before. He gripped her waist and began to shove her down on the sofa.

There was a wine bottle on the table. As he pushed her down, she slowly reached for it, anticipating the crack of his skull. And even if he were dead, she would truly be free. 

As he settled between her thighs, her fingers closed around it. As he began to press kisses on her bosom, murmuring, _“Mama,”_ in a raw, childish voice, her hand closed around it, feeling the heaviness between her fingers.

A commotion sounded outside the door. As Leonardo lifted his head, she took the wine bottle and brought it down.

She was small, and her grip was clumsy, but it gave him a bash on the head nevertheless. He was knocked backwards, to the side of the sofa, and she scrambled up just a familiar figure burst in.

He was wielding a gun, hair in disarray and eyes wild.

“Patience,” he barked. “You’re coming with me.”

She was so glad she began to weep. It was all over. Everything. Her nightmare was gone. “Oh, Salvatore.”

“Get in the black car with my brother. We’re holding them off, but I don’t know for how much longer.” He gripped her arm and pulled her forward.

As she left through the snow-covered yard, she heard the distant blasts of gunshots and shouting. A bullet whizzed by her ear. 

She jumped in a black car parked outside the gate. In the back seat, Gabe was white-faced and holding a bandage to his cheek. He turned his terrified gaze on her but still had the fatherly conscience to ask, “Are you okay?”

“I… I wish I was.”

Salvatore jumped in the driver’s seat and gunned the engine. “Let’s get the fuck out of here!”

Patience cried silently as they left through the cobblestone road, her eternal nightmare behind her as they left the walled fortress behind her, the shouts and gunfire fading into the distance **.** Every mile they traveled, they came closer and closer to heaven.

She was free. She was with people who would protect her.

Patience caught Gabe’s gaze, and he had the presence of mind to squeeze her hand. “It’s all okay, honey.”

She began to weep harder then, tears of happiness.

She was leaving the house behind. The torture, the fear, the pain, the misery, all of it was disappearing into the rearview mirror.

Patience Winslow was safe. And it was the strangest, most alien, loveliest feeling she’d ever felt.

She let her head fall sideways onto Gabe’s shoulder, and tears of exhaustion began to leak out of her closed eyelids.

***

It wasn’t until she woke up in Barbara’s house a week later, nausea bubbling up in her stomach, that she felt something was wrong. 

When her nipples began to get tender, the horrified suspicion mounted. 

And when she finally missed her period, she knew, inexorably, that her nightmare had come true.


	14. On The Street Where You Live, Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> High School AU, Salvatore/Patience. These are my favorite bonus chapters period, I loved writing them so much! I always thought that if Patience and Salvatore were younger–and met of their own accord–it would be quite different. Hell, extend that to Leonardo too.

Patience Winslow took the same route home every day, trudging down the gray street with her books in her arms, passing a cracked fire hydrant, an abandoned warehouse, a park with rusted and creaking equipment. The stream ran with green scum and sludge alongside the road in a drain.

She had no idea why her parents had decided to move from Greenhaven to stinking Garland City. She hated everything about it. She hated the school and the rude, rowdy city girls. She hated her bored, apathetic teachers. She hated the way she knew nobody. In Greenhaven, everyone had known her and her parents by name.

And most of all, she hated her slum of a neighborhood. There were union meetings next door. A drunk with dogs that never stopped barking on the other side. There were gunshots in the night and people speaking different languages and gangs of youths that loitered the street. 

One particular gang she hated with a passion. They were always standing outside of a butcher shop she passed, talking and smoking cigarettes. They always were dressed sloppily, with their shirts untucked. She suspected they were dagos, but she thought one sandy-headed boy might have been Polish or Irish.

The head boy, a black-haired youth, always yelled something dirty out to her. And always her. One day when she was crossing the street behind a group of other girls he had called out to her specifically, and the other girls had giggled and looked behind them at her.

Patience was approaching them now. Sure enough, there they were, one leaning against the wall, another holding a cigarette, and the head one spotted her.

She walked faster. 

“–skirt! Come over and give me a kiss,” he yelled, and she bowed her head, flushing in shame. An old woman was across the street, surveying them closely with her lips pursed in disapproval. She was so focused on where she was going that she didn’t notice when she tripped over the curb. Her knee erupted in pain.

The quietness of the street, and the loudness of his voice, stressed her and humiliated her. She struggled up and began walking again, and the shouts rang in her ears, and she covered her face with her hands and began running, tears bursting from her eyes.

“Oh, look at that! You made her cry!”

“You’re a son-of-a-bitch, Sal.”

She heard rapid pounds of footsteps, and someone grabbed her shoulder. She turned around to face the dark-haired boy, trying desperately to hide her face.

“Hey, hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you cry.” His voice was regretful and a little embarrassed.

“Go to hell,” she said, trying not to tear up, but he took the back of her head and cleaned her tears with his sleeve. Close-up, he was very handsome, with thick black hair in a widow’s peak and sharp, angular features.

The rest of his gang were around her now. “C'mon, tell the girl you’re sorry,” said the heavy one.

“I…” he looked discontented. “I always looked at you walking back from school and– hey, you all! Get lost!” He barked at his friends.

“I kinda like you,” he said under his breath once they were gone. “And I guess–I didn’t know that you’d. Uh, react this way–but I really do like you.”

Patience studied him through her tears. His big dark eyes and stark eyebrows and thin lips and that gangly frame halfway to becoming a man. She still felt like crying but the thought of someone liking her flattered her. “Do you go to William Weston High school? I think you’re a few grades ahead of me.”

“Yes’m. My name’s Salvatore Mallozzi.” He offered her his hand. “Pleased to meet you.”

His hand was warm as she shook hers.

***

After that, he began giving her little tokens every time she walked by, instead of harassing her. He had pennies and handkerchiefs and even an ice cream cone sometimes. And she knew she should hate him–she still did, a little–and stay away from him, because he was the sort of boy you should stay away from, but she was impressed and flattered and fascinated by the attention the older boy heaped on her.

Patience arrived home one day, and Mommy was yelling at Daddy. His assignment wasn’t ending soon enough, and Mommy wanted to go back to Greenhaven. Patience hated it when her parents yelled like that. She didn’t go home, but ran off, her schoolbag thumping against her side.

When she came to the corner, the boys were still there, and she approached shyly. Black-haired Sal was holding a cigarette, and he smiled and motioned. “Come on, join the crowd.”

Patience took one inhale, coughed, and resolved to never do it again. She passed the cigarette to the sandy-haired boy. “I don’t think I ever got your name,” said Sal.

“Patience. Patty.”

“This is Thurston and Luca and Tony and Jacko.” He indicated each member in turn. 

“Is this your… like, headquarters?”

“No. My dad owns this shop so he lets us hang around.”

Standing by them, their casual conversation horrified and fascinated her. Robbing trucks. Making another rival member ‘pay’. Her attraction couldn’t compete with her disgust, and she eventually walked home. 

But her home still wasn’t empty.

A strange black car was parked in the driveway, and unfamiliar voices filtered from the living room.

She poked her head in. Daddy was sitting on the couch, face pale. Opposite him she saw a hulking beast of a man, shoulders broad, and beside him a slimmer figure with golden hair.

“Patience, honey. Go play outside,” said Daddy, his voice having a note of urgency that made her hackles rise.

The hulking man turned to fix his eyes on her, and her body paralyzed with fear. They were dead as the eyes of an animal, like eyes painted on a wall, completely blank. They made her freeze in place like a deer in the headlights.

He said something in a deep voice to the golden-haired boy, and the boy stood up. “Go on, go,” said Daddy.

Patience was happy enough to leave the room, and the cold-eyed man. The blond boy tagged along, smiling congenially.

“What is your name?” He asked her as she sat on the stoop. “Mine is Leonardo. My father knows your father well.”

He spoke with a heavy Italian accent she could tell he was trying desperately to shed. “Patience,” she said.

_“Pazienza._ What a lovely name. Patience is a virtue.”

“Yeah. It’s a family name. One of my great-aunts or something was named Patience.”

“Are you from around here?”

“No, Massachusetts. What about you?”

“Sicily. Scafapani. It’s a beautiful little village near the coast, tucked away in the mountains. But I was born in Rome, the capital of Italy.”

“That’s pretty cool.” Patience didn’t really want to talk with him, but she kept getting drawn back. He was a very handsome boy, with thick, curling golden hair and red lips. His eyes were so blue, and with such long lashes, that she desperately envied him.

She heard a crash from inside, and leaped up. He caught her shoulder and forced her down. “You have very pretty eyes,” he said, staring at her intently. “Green as the sea.”

Leonardo really was very handsome. And well-dressed, in a waistcoat and a tie. The family was obviously well-off. His hand was warm, and he stroked her leg through her tights. “Thank you,” she said, wanting to move her leg but feeling frozen.

The door swung open, and the dark-haired man exited, his heavy boots clomping on the ground. He sharply spoke a word in a different language to his son.

Leonardo stood up. “I will meet you again, _Pazienza.”_

He followed his father to the car, and Patience watched them leave before she entered the house again.

The sitting room was a wreck. The coffee table was overturned, and papers were everywhere. Her father was dabbing his bleeding nose with his handkerchief. 

“Daddy! What happened?”

“Nothing, honey.” He turned to her sharply. “Listen. If you’re here alone, and someone knocks at the door, never answer it. Understood?”

She nodded blankly.

“Go tell your mom it’s time to start dinner.”

***

Patience studied her shopping list. Milk. Red beans. Flour. Beef. The deli had bene closed that day, so that was the one thing she couldn’t find. Her mom was going to give her an earful–she wanted to make her famous meat pie for guests that were coming over, three of her dad’s police coworkers.

As she walked home in the waning Saturday sun, she kept an eye out for when Salvatore and his gang loitered in front of that butcher shop, but they weren’t there. They never were on weekends. An idea sparked in her mind. Hell, if she knew the guy, why didn’t she just get her meat from his shop? For some reason her father and his friends never went there, preferring to go to the shop that was 2 miles away. It never made much sense to her. I mean, the paint was peeling and there were always shifty-looking people in and out of there, but that didn’t mean they had bad meat.

Patience was a naturally inquisitive girl, so she stepped inside. It was warm and well-lit, with a large glass counter under which various sliced meats sat glistening. The menu was written in chalk on a blackboard nailed to the wall.

The benches and tables were all occupied by older, balding men in ratty-looking overcoats, who all looked over at her suspiciously.

A stocky man with a jowly face was shaving slices off a hamhock behind the counter. He looked up indifferently. “Hi,” Patience said. “Can I, uh–”

At the sound of her voice, a familiar person stuck his head out of the door.

“Patience, is that you?” He said. 

“Yeah! Hi, Sal.”

He was dressed in a blood-smeared butcher’s apron and his hair was in disarray. He self-consciously smoothed it back, but that did nothing but make his hair sticky with blood. “What are you doing here?”

Patience smiled inwardly. She’d surprised him at his workplace and he was all embarrassed. “Well, the deli on Fashion Square was closed, so I decided to stop here instead. Guess you don’t get too many girls here, huh?”

He laughed nervously. “Well, I guess, I mean, not too much. You look, uh, great.”

Patience was wearing a plaid skirt, white knee-high socks and a blouse. “Thanks. I wish I could say the same about you.”

“So, what are you looking for?”

“One pound of corned beef.” As he began her order, she rested her elbows on the counter amd stared at him. “Hey, Sal? Do you know anyone called Leonardo? Blond, with curly hair?”

His face turned puce, and he cut into the slab of beef with more force than neccessary. “That little fuck. His daddy pays for him to go to St. Joseph’s, that private Catholic school that costs an arm and a leg to get in. Tries to pretend his whole family ain’t from the ass-end of Sicily. But people love him 'cause he’s a good talker and has a nice manner. I hate that smarmy little douchebag.” He stopped cutting for a moment. “Why? Do you know him?”

“Yeah, I met him.” Patience studied him carefully. “He’s real cute, you know.”

“The Borghese boy?” said one of the men at the tables. “I always thought he was a fag.”

Salvatore looked mortally offended. “He probably fuckin’ is. You stay away from him, Patty. He’s a two-faced little snake and always has been. Don’t let him take advantage of you.” He finished weighing her beef and wrapped it up. “Here you go.”

Patience took out the rest of the money her mother had given here, but he pressed his hand over hers, closing her fist with the money inside. “Don’t bother. This one’s on the house.” He smiled at her, that billion-dollar smile that made her heart thump. “Save it, get yourself a treat. Maybe at that Dairy Queen on the corner of 5th and 9th. How about I meet you there after school on Monday?”

She smiled back. “Sure. Sounds good. See you then.”

As she left, a man walking in held the door for her. He was tall and handsome with slicked-back hair and dark glasses. “Thank you, sir,” said Patience.

“Anytime, sweetie.” He let the door swing shut behind him. As soon as Sal spotted the man, he stood ramrod straight. “Boss Malone!”

“Heeey, Sal. Thought I’d drop by to see how our 'project’ was doing. Got yourself a girl now, haven’t you?” He ruffled Sal’s hair and grabbed him in a half-hug with his arm around his neck. The younger boy guffawed bashfully.

“Son, do you know who that girl is?” Malone’s voice became serious.

“Patience, right? She lives just around the corner.”

“That’s Patience Winslow, I’ve seen her around before. She’s the daughter of Richard Winslow." 

Realization dawned on Salvatore’s face. "THAT Richard Winslow?”

“Yeah. Him. So be careful, okay? I know you’re just kids fooling around. But don’t let yourself get… carried away or nothin’." 

"I won’t, boss." 

Malone nodded to the door that led to the back of the butcher shop. "So. Let’s see how our 'project’ is goin, yeah?”

In a back room, among slabs of frozen pork and sausage, was a man tied to a chair. His ears, nose, and eyes were cut out, crystallized trickles of blood frozen down his face and neck.

“Cocksucker still ain’t tellin us anything, is he?”

“I’ve been working on him all day, Bats. Nothin.” Salvatore crossed his arms, blood-stained cleaver in hand.

Malone took the cleaver from him, threw it up in the air and caught it by the handle. “Let this be a learning experience, Sal. Watch closely…”

***

The date had gone well, and Salvatore had been nice enough to walk her home after the fact. She had bid him goodbye on the street beyond where she lived so her mom and dad didn’t have to see him. He wasn’t the sort of boy her Daddy would have been enthused to see her bring home.

Her heart was in her throat as she walked up to her door. She was noticing all sorts of things about him now, the sharp widow’s peak on his forehead, how big and black his eyes were, how tall he was, so tall he had to stoop down to kiss her.

Her mind was so focused on the kissing that she didn’t notice they had company until she saw the figure sitting in the living room.

_“Ciao, Pazienza."_ Leonardo put down his teacup delicately. 

"Whatcha doin’ here, Leonardo?”

“He wants to talk with your daddy. Richard should be getting back in half an hour.” Marilyn was red in the face, and her skirt was untucked. Patience collapsed on the floral print sofa next to Leonardo and tool her shoes off. “Did you just make these, Mommy?”

“Leonardo brought them by. He’s a very good cook.”

She bit into one. Peanut butter. They were indeed surprisingly good. “Where’d you learn to cook like this? Do you have home ec at your school?”

Leonardo chuckled. “Not at St. Joseph’s, though I’d love to take home ec. I do all the cooking for my father, always have.”

“That’s weird.” The thought of doing all her cooking for her dad was bizarre. 

“You should stay, Leo. Help us make dinner,” said Mommy.

“Alas. I’m afraid I am expected home just after I talk with Mr. Winslow.”

The door swung open, and she heard her father’s footsteps. As soon as he entered the living room and saw Leonardo his face froze. “Both of you, get out.”

Patience left, her quarrelling mother close behind. She was peeling potatoes on the table when Leonardo finally emerged, and he paused next to her on his way out the door. “You should come over to my house for dinner sometime,” he said softly. “I’ll show you how good my cooking is.”

She smiled. “I might take you up on that sometime.”

He put his hand on her shoulder and let it slide off slowly, fingers trailing over her skin, then left like a breeze through the front door.

“He’s very nice, isn’t he?” Sighed Marilyn, dunking the potatoes in a pot of hot water. “He doesn’t look like a dago at all. In fact, he looks very white.”

“Italians can look like anything, Mom. They were Romans and stuff, remember? I learned it in World History.”

“I suppose so. I don’t know what the Borgheses and Richard have against each other. I wish the boy would come and visit more often.”

***

“Junior Prom is comin’ up.”

Patience stirred her sundae, watching the caramel and ice cream swirl together. “Is it? Are you going?”

“Well, I never went to prom before. Thought it was kinda gay, you know. But… uh, I was wondering if… maybe this year, you’d like to go with me.”

She stopped stirring and looked up at him, stars in her eyes. “Really?”

“Yeah.” He smiled. “And maybe, if everything works out… we can go next year, as well.”

Patience tossed her arms around his narrow shoulders and kissed him passionately. His lips parted under hers, and she tasted cigarettes.

“I’d love to! Oh, Salvatore! Oh my gosh! I have to get a dress…”

***

Salvatore walked her home as he usually did, arm in arm, and since it was getting dark, they took a shortcut down an alley she didn’t recognize.

They emerged onto a dimly lit street with weeds growing through the cracks of the sidewalk. Some of the houses were boarded up.

The street was empty but for a kid wearing a leather jacket leaning against the wall of a building. Smoke spiralled from the cigarette he held in his hand. When he saw the two of them, he threw his cigarette to the ground and stomped on it. “What the fuck are you doing here, greaser?” He snarled. “This is Bulldogs territory.”

Sal eyed him coldly. “Calm the fuck down, Sam. I’m just escorting my girlfriend home.”

“Well, escort her home some other way. Your kind isn’t allowed around here.”

“I will go wherever the fuck I want, you mick asshole.”

“What did you call me? You ain’t so tough without your little gang, you guinea cocksucker. Come over here!”

Salvatore’s arm was tense in hers. “I ain’t gonna cause a scene in front of my girl, otherwise I woulda beaten your red head in until it looked like a fucking pile of meat. Back off.”

“Maybe you should leave your girl here so I can take her home.” Sam leered at her, and her hackles rose. “Leave me alone!”

Salvatore let go of her arm and threw a punch so rapid that the boy barely had time to blink before his fist crunched into his face.

Sam stumbled back, hands going up to cover his face. Blood burst through his fingers.

Salvatore caught him with a right hook, but he was ready with a left hook. 

The thuds of muscle and bone were the only sound on that quiet street. Patient stood there, frozen, wanting to flee, wanting to scream, but able to do nothing but watch them. Salvatore twisted a an arm around his enemy and threw him to the ground. 

His nose was bleeding and his eyes were as black as coal. And he grabbed the boy’s arm and dragged him over to the curb, and threw his head on top of the concrete edge. 

And Sal kicked him so hard that the crack echoed through the night. Patience was screaming by then, frightened and shrill, and when she couldn’t take it anymore she ran back through the alleyway she came in.

Sal ran to catch up, grabbing her shoulder. “What the fuck are you doing? You won’t get home if you take this route! Come on–”

Patience yanked her shoulder out of his grip. “What is wrong with you?” She screamed. “Is that boy going to be okay?”

“Who cares?” He looked confused. “He’s just some Irish prick. He started it.”

She turned and tried to walk away, but his grip on her arm was iron.

“Listen.” He gripped her face between his hands. “If anyone hits on my girl, I’ll make them suffer. Doesn’t matter who they are. You’re mine, Patience. And you better remember it.”

The harsh tone of his voice made her heart thud, and she pulled out of his grip and headed into the darkness. She knew he was standing there, watching her even if he didn’t follow, and his gaze haunted her the whole way back, through her mother’s screams and curses and her father’s admonishments.


	15. On The Street Where You Live, Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On The Street Where You Live, Part 2. Here they be sex scenes, of the non consensual variety.

Patience perused the dresses on the rack. Two girls from her high school were at the normal-priced rack, giggling and casting smug looks behind them at the girl in the ratty skirt flipping through Woolworth’s discount rack. She tried to ignore them.

Too out-of-style… wrong size… too much lace… finally, when she was beginning to despair, she found a gorgeous green dress with a white sash and a ruffled bodice at the very end. It had a rip in the skirt, but that could be fixed.

She walked home, and as soon as she stepped through the door she was met by a familiar face. Leonardo was sitting on the couch, hair ruffled. His face brightened when he saw her. “What are you doing here?” She said.

Mommy came in, buttoning the front of her dress. “Did you find a prom dress, honey?”

“Yeah. It’s ten dollars.”

“I could have one made for you,” said Leonardo. “My father and I are tailors.”

The thought of Silvio with his giant sausage fingers sweating over her dress made her want to drink Drano. “It’s nice of you to offer, but thanks.”

Something in the air smelled fishy. Literally. Leonardo had his waistcoat (with the St.Joseph’s emblem) draped over the side of the couch.

“Patience, sweetie, go get the photo album. I want to show Leo some pictures.”

_‘Leo’?_

Mommy looked happier than she had ever seen her before. Her skin was flushed and she looked at Leonardo with adoration that seemed closer to worship.

Patience reluctantly got the album out of the cabinet and Mommy flipped it open on her lap. Black-and-white photos of days gone by–days when Mommy and Daddy didn’t scream or hit each other–flashed past.

“This is our wedding day,” said Mommy, pointing to a photo of her and Daddy, her radiant in a long-sleeved white dress and Daddy in his army uniform. “Richard had just come back from serving in World War Two.”

“My father served the war as well,” said Leonardo. 

“Which side?” Said Patience, and her mom scowled at her.

“He fought for Italy. But he was never a fascist, just a patriot. When he saw how bad things were going for Italy, he switched to helping the Allies. He helped rebuild Italy. And after it was all said and done, he came here to start a new life.”

Patience had a distinct feeling that some of that was bullshit, but said nothing. 

“Mrs. Winslow, you look radiant. A true Southern beauty.”

Mommy giggled. “That was a long time ago.”

“You are still beautiful. I know you still turn heads when you’re out.” He winked. “If I were your husband, I’d be too afraid of someone stealing you I’d never let you out of the house.”

God, he knew how to lay it on thick. She grumped to herself as he paused over a picture of Patience. “Is that you, _Pazienza?”_

Patience was about eight, in a checked pinafore and her hair in braids. “Yeah. That was the church picnic, remember, Mommy?”

“I wish I had pictures like these,” Leonardo said softly. “All of them are so happy and lovely. I can tell you all adore each other.”

“Don’t you have baby pictures?”

“Not many. We lived a rough life. Photographs were a luxury few of us could afford.”

“You poor thing,” said Mommy, cupping his face. Patience looked away. She hated the syrupy way Mommy spoke to him. He wasn’t her son. Patience was her daughter, and she was RIGHT THERE.

They reached the end, and there was a picture of the family in front of their new house in Garland City. Patience was forcing a smile, as was her mother, and Richard wasn’t smiling at all.

Patience winced. “That’s when we moved to Garland. Urgh.”

“Why the move?”

“Well, Greenhaven PD wanted dad to come to Garland to work on some assignment with the Garland City PD. And it’s… kinda dragging.”

“What assignment?”

Patience looked at her mom, and doubt flashed across her face. “Organized crime,” she said slowly.

“You don’t want to tell me? That’s fine. I don’t blame you.” He rubbed his finger over the photograph, lingering on Patience’s face. “You really do look like your mother, Patience. Both of you are beautiful. Richard is a very, very lucky man.”

Patience couldn’t help it. He was handsome and she was a little flattered. “I need to… go do homework.”

“Richard is due back soon as well. Thank you for dropping that casserole off, Leo.”

Patience escorted him out. “It’s lovely spending time with you and your mother. We should all go out together sometime.”

“I’m not sure my dad would like that.”

“Well, we just won’t tell anyone then.” He leaned against the side of the door, shielding his pretty face from the sun with one hand. “Patience, I wanted to ask you something.”

“Yeah?” She wondered when Woolworth’s was closing.

“There’s going to be a celebration at St. Joseph’s next Sunday. Feast of St. Gennaro. Would you like to come with me?”

“Uhm, I’m actually going to be doing something that night. Prom. I have a date.”

He paused, and something settled over his face. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine." 

His blue eyes were glassy in the sunshine. "Who with?”

“Salvatore Mallozzi. I think you know him.”

“I do indeed.” He looked away. The joviality of his manner had seemed to vanish. “Thank you for having me over.” He walked down the steps to the house, not looking back.

***

“You look beautiful, sweetie.” Marilyn fixed her hair a bit and steppled back. “Perfecto!”

Patience looked at herself in the mirror, turning her head this way and that to admire the makeup. “Thanks, Mommy! You did a great job.”

“I still think you should have worn my black dress. It’ll look so charming and vintage." 

"Ha. I’d get hell for it from the other girls, I’d never live it down.”

She looked out the window. “You’ll have to introduce me to your date soon.”

Patience had no intention of doing so, and would make excuses to the end of time. “Sure, I will. We’ll all have to have dinner or something.” She checked the clock. “Well, off I go. Bye, Mommy.”

“Have fun, sweetie. Don’t get carried away.” The look on her face was bittersweet as she watched her daughter leave the house.

***

Salvatore had offered to pick her up, but she refused. She REALLY didn’t need her mom and dad to see who she was dating. So she walked down the cracked streets to Salvatore’s house.

He lived just a few blocks over, in a small, cramped tenement with an overgrown yard and a car on concrete blocks on the street opposite. She nervously knocked on the door, and it was pulled open by a plump girl with red lipstick and frizzy blonde hair. “Oh, you must be Patience!”

“Are you… related?" 

"No. My name’s Barbara. I’m here for the prom as well.” She stepped into the doorway, showing off her ruffled polka-dot dress. “I’m going with Gabe, Salvatore’s brother. I like your dress!”

“Salvatore has a brother?” She followed her in.

The house was packed, hot and noisy. A boy that looked similiar to Sal, but with longer hair, was straightening his bow tie in the hallway mirror. He looked over and smiled at her. “Hi! You must be Patience.”

He yelled something in Sicilian behind him, and was answered by a woman’s voice in another rapid smattering of Sicilian. A woman with thick dark hair and thicker eyebrows was cooking something in the smoky kitchen as Patience emerged into the living room. As she looked over at Patience and frowned, the resemblance to her two sons was so striking she wondered if she were simply Salvatore in a dress with a little eyeshadow. 

“Why can’t you get a nice Italian girl?” The woman yelled in the other direction.

“Quiet down, mama!” Salvatore yelled back from another room.

There was a man sitting on the ripped couch, holding a beer. She vaguely recognized the dark shades and the slicked-back hair.

“Patience! So this is the girl that my Sal is so in love with. Let me get a good look at you.

"Skin and bones,” sniffed the mother.

“That dress looks lovely on you, darling. Twirl around.” She did so. _“Che bella!”_

Barbara came in and collapsed on the sofa. “Are you done in there, Sal?”

“I’ll be ready when I’m ready!”

“I’ve known Sal since he was knee-high– I’m his part-time boss. Name’s Dario Malone, but you can call me Bats. Cause I’m battier than a warehouse full of 'em!” That seemed to amuse Malone, and he threw his head back and cackled.

Dario Malone… that name sounded familiar. She felt like she’d seen it in the newspaper before. A door swung open and Sal stood there in a well-cut white tuxedo, his black hair in a neat side-part. He was holding a corsage. 

“You look great, Sal! You’re so handsome! Your suit’s… amazing!”

“I let him borrow it,” said Malone. “After all, it’s a special night.”

“You look stunning,” Salvatore managed, his eyes like saucers. “Your dress… it’s…,”

“From the clearance rack at Woolworth’s.”Salvatore stepped forward and pinned the corsage to her breast. “May I?”

“You may.” Patience took his arm in hers.

“This kid is like a son to me,” said Malone. “So you better bring him back home before midnight, understand?” He wagged his finger in a parody of a mother. 

She laughed. “Sure, Mr. Malone.”

 _“Salud,_ Sal.” He lifted his beer bottle. “You make this a special night.”

Barbara and Gabe and them got in the car, a swanky Cadillac that was probably borrowed as well. Barbara and Patience sat in the back, Gabe and Sal in the front.

The ride was long and glitzy and filled with laughter. Salvatore blew through two red light and the speed limit, but she didn’t care. Barbara cracked raunchy joke after raunchy joke. When they finally arrived at the prom, Patience staggered out, dizzy, when Sal held the door open for her.

Their car outshone every other car in the parking lot. People stared in admiration at the Mallozzi brothers and their dates as they escorted them into the auditorium.

A banner proclaiming CLASS OF 52 WILLIAM WESTON HIGH SCHOOL hung over the dance floor. Punch bowls and glitzy dresses galore. High heels spinning in a dance. Neon streamers everywhere. Patience was bedazzled, and had to hang onto Sal’s arm for support.

“Yahoo! Let’s dance!” Barbara grabbed Gabe and spun him into the crowd of dancers, and Sal followed suit.

None of them knew how to dance, that much was clear, and they kept knocking into other people and each other. Patience was laughing and blushing, and hooked her arms around Salvatore’s narrow shoulders

Even his pallor had flushed, and he was grinning broadly.

They separated when they became exhausted, and Sal led her over to a chair as he went to get them punch.

Patience leaned her elbows on the white tablecloth as Sal disappeared into the crowd. This was the best night of her life and it could only get better. She never wanted it to end.

“Excuse me? Excuse me? P-Patience?”

She turned around to face a brown-haired boy with coke bottle glasses and a bow tie. He was holding a pen and a notepad.

“Yes?” He looked vaguely familiar.

“I’m Mike. I’m in your gun class, I think.”

“Oh. Yeah. You always come in dead last. I’m sorry for beating you by fifty points last Friday, I shouldn’t have laughed at you.”

“It’s fine. I’ll take another elective next year. I’m not big on shooting, anyway, journalism is more my forte.” He scratched his head, looking nervous. “I’m covering the prom for the yearbook. Can I ask you a couple questions?”

“Sure.” She moved over to let him sit down.

“First question: Who is your date?”

“I’M her goddamn date, and you better beat it, you fucking mick.” Sal was standing there holding two cups of punch, his fingers so tight she worried that it would shatter.

He stood up. “Sorry. I’m with the yearbook, I was just interviewing–”

“I don’t give a fuck what you’re doing, find another girl.” Salvatore’s voice was a snarl.

“Sal, calm down. He really WAS just–”

“What the hell did you say to my brother?” Snarled someoneelse from behind. A tall brown-haired boy with a lantern jaw and a suit 2 sizes too small blocked out the light.

Sal slid the drinks over to her and faced him, body tense. “Get lost, Seamus. This doesn’t involve you.”

“Fuck you, Mallozzi. I got a fuckin bone to pick with you. You put my buddy Sam in the hospital. And you was the one trespassing on Bulldogs territory!”

A small circle had formed, watching the two boys. “Oh, no,” Michael said in a small voice.

Sal pushed up his sleeves just as Seamus took a step forward. The look in his glistening, coal-black eyes made her shudder. A chill ran down her spine. In her mind’s eye she saw the Irish boy’s head stomped into the curb, and heard the echoing crack through her brain.

“What’s going on here? Are you fighting? Enough!” Mr. Tolbert, their burly gym teacher, was elbowing his way through the throng.

Sal looked over to the teacher and looked about to argue–the cords on his neck were standing taut. But Patience wrapped her arms around him from behind, and saidnin his ear. “Forget about it Sal. He’s not worth it. C'mon, let’s dance a little more.”

Mike tugged his brother in the other direction, and Patience led him back to the dance floor and pulled him into a slow dance. She tilted her head up to rest their foreheads against each other.

He smelled like cigarette smoke, her boy, and as the gentleness in his eyes returned, she leaned up and slowly pressed her lips against his. They stayed like that, still, tasting each other, their bodies molded together. When they separated, he whispered, “Let’s get out of here?”

“What?” She giggled.

“I know a place–a beautiful little place that the two of us can go for some alone time. Come on, let’s go!” He tugged her towards the exit. She looked back, her hair whipping. “What about Gabe and Barb?" 

"They have friends who can drive them home. C'mon!”

***

It was indeed a beautiful little place. On a hill that overlooked the vast, glittering lights of Garland City, he had parked her car. She gazed out over the cornucopia of shining lights, spread like a blanket to the mass of darkness that was the bay. “Oh, Sal! This is wonderful!”

He was sitting back, smiling rakishly. “One hell of a sight, huh? Found this place while exploring one day. Thought it would be perfect. No one comes around here cause it’s right off the highway on the forest reserve. The trees hide it from the road." 

If Patience had been more suspicious, she probably would have questioned why he was out here so remote "exploring”, but she was caught up in a whirlwind of love and it didn’t occur to her. “It’s perfect. Thank you. This–everything is perfect.”

“I sure hope so. A perfect night for a perfect girl.” he smiled at her. He did have the most wonderful smile. It lit up his whole face. He was handsome, in that gangly way teenage boys often were, youth softening his features before they became angular adult’s features. His skin was very fair, milky pale and shaved clean of the faltering stubble that had just started to come in. His eyes were not hard anymore, but as soft and dark as a doe’s, his hair a matching sable that was carefully combed out of his face. 

And she was drowning in him, so much so that when he put a hand between her legs she didn’t object, but leaned forward to meet him in a kiss.

She was hypersensitized, breathing heavily and moaning as his mouth went from hers to the soft nape of her neck, nipping her slightly as his hand worked under her panties to reach her warm, damp confines.

He pressed the tip of his finger inside her, slowly moving in circles, and she stifled a moan. She could see him getting hard through his pants, and spontaneously rubbed him through the fabric. He swelled under her hand, becoming more erect with every rub she gave him.

He moved up to a tiny pinprick of flesh between her cleft, and the shock of pleasure was so electric she gasped. “There,” she said. “Yes, there, yes, keep rubbing!”

He encircled it with his finger and thumb, pressing and rubbing and sending her heart to her throat, and she increased her movements, gripping his bulging head through the fabric and squeezing it.

 _“Fuck,"_ he said when before now he had been silent, and his voice was strained. He pulled his hand out–she squirmed–and wrapped his arms around her, searching for the zipper of her dress, and when he yanked it down, it nearly tore. She gave a half-cry, half-laugh. "Sal!”

Her breasts–what little of them there were– popped free, and he smothered his face in them, licking and sucking the sensitive red tips. She grabbed his head, her fingers sinking into his soft black hair, not sure whether to pull him toward her or away, the stimulation zinging to the ends of her toes.

He unbuttoned his coat halfway, and pulled it off the rest of the way in his haste. The shirt came off too, and his bare chest was revealed, lean and scarred with every rib visible.

“Sal–” he quieted her with another kiss, pulling off her dress until she was in nothing but underwear and thigh-highs, and the underwear went too, dangling on her ankles.

The world swirled as he pulled a lever to put her seat back, and her head thudded against the soft seat as he climbed on top of her. He did not weigh much, but he seemed heavy as he pulled down his zipper, head bent so that his hair came free to shadow his face.

Something brushed her wet, spread opening, something hard and desperately hot, and before she could say a word he was fully sheathed in her, his thick cock spearing her spongy walls, and the pain wa so sudden and sharp the slow shreds of pleasure that had begun to build up vanished.

He began to move back and forth, his hips spasming as he forced his cock as far as it would go and pulled out, leaving just the head in. 

Whatever pleasure she might have felt was gone by the harsh movement and sudden penetration without any time for her to adjust. She struggled, the pain making tears come to her eyes, before he slammed her back down with a deliberateness to it that said _don’t do that again._

She looked at the car ceiling, tears streaking down the sides of her face as put his whole weight on her hips, grinding against her harder than a bullet in a chamber. The thought made her think of gun class, and if she had a gun right now, and she wondered whether she would use it on him right now.

Her long, pale legs unwillingly curved around his slim hips, her underwear hanging from one ankle. The lights of the city reflected on the dashboard, and on her quivering toetip, twitching back and forth as he slammed into her.

He froze, head nestled to the nape of her neck, and gave a moan that vibrated against her skin. Something hot spread through her lower body, like a warm, wet puddle. 

They lay like that for a moment, him harshly breathing against her skin, before he rolled off.

She sat up immediately, despite the stinging between her thighs, and pulled her dress around her. Her nose was running in addition to the tears that streamed down her cheeks. As she hefted herself, she felt something warm trickle down her leg. When she looked down she saw a streak of blood, mixed with white, slowly making its way down her thigh.

“Marry me,” said Salvatore.

Patience looked over at him in utter bewilderment. He was lying on his back, his narrow chest exhaling and expanding and his fly undone. The thing that had caused her so much pain was lying there on top of his pants, looking almost comical with its clumsy, mushroom-shaped head and the veins running helter skelter across its length.

“Are you joking?” She was trying to keep the sob out of her voice and it came overly hard.

“No! I’m serious.” He rolled over to look at her with sheer adoration. “I want to have kids with you, I want to come home to you, I want to do this every night. I love you, Patience!”

“Sal, we’re still in high school! How do you think you’re going to support us?”

“I’ll quit school. I’ve been thinking of leaving school anyway. I’ll find a place for us. I got a job–I can support us both, no worry.”

She gave a mirthless laugh. “With what, three dollars an hour? You’re fucking delusional.”

“I got connections. I could make a living–”

 _“We're not getting married._ Get your head screwed on straight–”

The slap he delivered her knocked her head into the car door, and she saw stars.

Clutching her head, she turned frightened eyes onto her boyfriend.

His eyes made her freeze like a rabbit in the headlights. They were burning coal, livid and infernal. “You think that I can’t support us? Can’t hold down a job? Or is that what you _expected?”_

He pulled her forward by her throat. “Cause I’m just some fuckin lowlife, and I’ll never be anything more than some scumbag working a dead-end job **,** cause I’m nothing but a criminal, cause I’ll never be an honest man, for the same reason you won’t introduce me to your parents. I killed people before, you know, Patience?” He punctuated his words a harsh shake of her head. His two fingers were cinching her throat, cutting off her air supply. Her gaze was starting to turn white. “I killed people and I’ll do it again. I ain’t a boy, Patience. I’m a MAN." 

He let her go. "And don’t you ever forget it.”

She clutched her throat, coughing weakly, her eyes overflowing with tears of pain and fright. Salvatore paused, then smashed his fist against the dashboard. _“FUCK!”_

They sat there like that, Sal still and Patience sobbing weakly, until Salvatore reversed the car.

The trip back was quiet. Salvatore made several attempts at conversation, but when she didn’t respond, he lapsed into angry silence. He dropped her off at the corner without a goodbye.

During the walk back she felt like a medieval woman doing the walk of shame. The weight of what happened weighed on her as heavy as a mortar. All she wanted was to hide safe and sound, away from the horrors of the night. She wanted her mother’s soft voice, her soft, comforting touch, her kind, gentle dark eyes. Whenever anything had gone wrong, whenever little Patience was crying, Mommy would hold her and put her on her lap and kiss her tears away.

She felt like bursting into tears when she saw the glowing orange squares of her windows come into view.

Patience rushed through the front door, waiting to topple into her mother’s arms.

A very different scene greeted her.

A familiar elegant figure was sitting on her– _her–_ couch, one leg crossed over the other. His white shirt was undone and unbuttoned down his chest, and his pants were loose on his hips.

He looked over slowly, putting glass of white wine down. A brassiere was lying discarded on the floor. “Did you come back from your prom date, _Pazienza?_ With Salvatore?”

“It’s eleven at night, _why are you here?"_ She was screaming and crying and did not need to deal with this and _wanted him out._

"I think you know exactly why I’m here, Patience.” His voice was quiet in the silence of her house.

The realization hit her like an avalanche. Slow, creeping, then collapsing in a sudden wave.

“You… and Mommy…” her voice was small. She didn’t want to believe it.

He was standing up to lean against the wall. His golden hair tumbled over his shoulders as he tilted his head to look at her. “It took you long enough.”

Fresh tears stung her eyes as she struggled to comprehend the end of her happy child’s version of her parents’ marriage. “Mom! _Mommy!”_

“Your Mommy is not coming. Your Mommy is asleep and she won’t wake up for quite a while.”

He let a long, strong arm drape across the doorside. He stared at her slowly, intensely, his eyes dark and amused.

“Wouldn’t,” he said, “It be a tragedy if your father was to hear about this?”

The idea pierced her brain, sunk into it like a winestain. She thought of her parents divorcing. Marilyn and Richard. Those happy picnics, the fair trips, the family dinners, the _household_ disappearing. She thought of Daddy finding out, and the despair she imagined on his face made fresh tears dot her cheeks. “No. No, please. Don’t tell him–If, if it needs to, I will, but please, not you, not now–”

“And what would you do to make that a reality?” He stepped closer, until the scent of his cologne hit her. The sickly sweet made her gorge rise, as did his smile.

“No,” she said as she realized his words. “No.” She looked behind her, praying for her father to get back.

“Fuck you. I’m not–you can’t blackmail me like this! I won’t fuck you and you won’t take advantage of me like this! I–” she was crying so hard she wanted to collapse. 

Leonardo took her wrist and slammed her against the wall. “Time is ticking, Patience. Your father is due back in an hour.” A sly, vicious smile broke across his face. “Let’s get to work.”

He divested her of her dress, which fell in a crumpled heap on the ground. His body was warm and attentive, unlike Salvatore, moving carefully and warmly against her trembling body, supporting her against the wall and capturing her lips in a deep, soul-sucking kiss. She smelled his sick sweetness and felt the thick curly hair between her fists, and wanted to vomit.

And then he was in her. His hot stiffness was invading her damaged warmth, rubbing and sliding carefully over her wounded walls. His cock was already warm–from what, she did not know.

Leonardo was considerate, a slow, careful lover, seeking the ways to make her squeal. He touched her in the right ways, rubbing her clit and thumbing her nipples while he covered her mouth with his.

“You’re wetter than I thought you’d be,” he whispered. “Did you and your boyfriend have some fun before you came home?”

He separated, cock half out of her, and the thin strings of white plastered his cock.

She wanted to sob from shame.

“What a naughty girl,” he whispered in her ear.

 _No. Not after Salvatore. Not after this_.

He dropped to his knees in one fluid motion, and pressed his mouth to the apex of her thighs.

Her knees buckled as he gave his first suck, followed by a lave, drawing out the seed from her body.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” she could only helplessly cry as the tip of his tongue teased her sensitive lips and clit.

He withdrew his head to gaze into her eyes, and the infinity beyond them made her spine stiffen.

“The only seed you need to have in you is mine.”

He stood up, and in the same movement, thrust into her. 

Her back weakened as he began his steady rhythm, hips thrusting back and forth measuredly until her belly began to build up with more sparks of electricity. 

She didn’t want it, she didn’t want any of it, all she wanted to do was flee to the refuge of her room and cry. But he wasn’t letting go of her, he was hammering and kissing and pleasuring her, until the climax building up in her abused body was too intense to ignore.

The head of his cock twitched, and she knew he was close to release. “Wouldn’t it be grand if we had a baby?” He murmured into her ear, punctuating his words with a warm, wet lick. “We’ll have a little girl together. Oh, papa will be gone, _promesso,_ and even your mother, if you so desire. Take it all in. Every bit. I’ll make you a mother alright, and you’ll bear my seed until your legs collapse and your body can’t take it anymore.”

His lovingly hissed promises sent her into a mindless state of panic, of giving up her school, her parents, of everything that ever meane anything to her. The vestiges of her encounter with Salvatore had put her in hysteria, and it had reached a breaking point. She drew her head back and slammed it into Leonardo’s with a loud _crack._

His cock pulled free, and she slammed onto the ground just in time for her to pull her green dress around her body and make a break for her room.

She slammed her door shut and locked it with the slim wire latch, which stretched taut when Leonardo tried to force his way in. _“Pazienza.”_

The doorknob jiggled.

“Do you want your father to know about this?”

The chain snapped taut.

“Let me in.”

She stood in the middle of her room, moonlight bathing her. “Go away.”

“You’ll be mine soon, anyway. Your mother will belong to me, and so will you. Why not make this easier on yourself?”

 _“Go away!"_ She crushed her hands over her ears and knelt down, and sobbed, praying for the clink of metal and the thuds to melt away and the sound of her father’s boot’s to come thudding in, but for that moment in time, all she could do was crouch and wail, and wish desperately for the night to end.

***

The next few weeks, Patience avoided Salvatore. She took a different route home, even though it was a mile out of her way. She never went to see him at the butcher shop.

She knew Leonardo kept visiting her mother. Many days she stayed awake, eyes wide open and tortured as she knew what was going on down the hall, trying to banish the faint moans from her subconscious. But she kept her door locked. Her window latched.

A month later, she missed her period.


	16. On The Street Where You Live, Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Final Part! Hope you enjoyed it!

Patience stared at the bathroom wall, tears welling in her eyes.

Her period always came like clockwork, every second of the month. It was the fourteenth, and she was late. This morning she had woken up nausea so severe she vomited in the toilet. And the nausea had struck again in gym class.

Someone rapped irritably on the bathroom door. “Are you done in there?”

“NO!” She burst out. 

She heaved silent sobs, burying her face in her hands. There was graffiti on the bottom of the door. EVAN AND BETH FOREVER surrounded by a heart.

She wondered who Evan and Beth were. They were probably a happy couple, waiting to graduate and marry. He would probably have a good job, and her parents would like him, not like Patience and Salvatore.

She pressed the heels of her wrists into her eyes and let her sobs overwhelm her.

***

It was a bright afternoom at the butcher shop, and for once, the only thing that was being chopped there was meat. A black-haired young man was taking inventory when the front door jangled and he looked up.

As soon as Salvatore saw who it was, he appeared frustrated. “What the hell are you doing here, Leo Angelino?”

The boy looked about as out-of-place in the butcher shop as a lion would on a Kansas farm, with his uniform and carefully coiffed hair. “I am not frequenting your lovely establishment for the charming array of services you offer. I am here to speak to a certain person, that person being you.”

“You coulda just said ‘I’m here to talk to you.’”

“Yes, but then I wouldn’t be able to see the charming look on your face as you attempted to the decipher the big words in my speech.”

“What the fuck do you want?”

He put his elbows on the counter and leaned forward until his nose nearly touched Salvatore’s. “I hear you’re dating Richard Winslow’s daughter.”

Salvatore looked disgrunted. “Well, I was for a while. Don’t know where she’s gotten to as of late.”

Leonardo toyed with the edge of the frayed paper menu. “I think, for the good of you both, you should stop seeing her.”

“That ain’t none of business, you god damn faggot. What do you care?”

“Just look at you. You already have a criminal record, you work a dead-end job, you have no prospects. You’re just a hooligan from the wrong side of the tracks.”

He leaned closer, and Salvatore stood his ground, but his fists were clenched and trembling.

“She deserves so much better than you and you know it. That’s probably why she’s not seeing you anymore. She realized that you’re no good, Salvatore. It would be best if you simply… moved on.”

“SHUT UP!" 

He pushed Leonardo backwards. "If you ain’t buying, you got no reason to be here. If you don’t get out right now I’m gonna throw you out.”

Leonardo held up his hands, backing away, but kept that irritating smile on his face. When the door swung shut, Salvatore turned and punched the wall, his fist crumpling the cheap wood.

His father barked at him to get back to work, and he did so slowly.

***

Leo was there. He was always there. She wanted to punch him as soon as he looked over at her and smiled.

“Patience honey, welcome home. There’s a sandwich in the fridge for your lunch. I’m making pot roast tonight.” Marilyn crossed one leg over the other, and Patience noted she wasn’t wearing pantyhose. “Can you take the clothes out of the drier?” She flipped her hair ostentatiously, eyes on the young blond man beside her.

Tormented by her thoughts, she trudged down the basement. Her mind was whirring, caught in a circle like a broken toy, and she didn’t notice someone enter in after her until the door clicked shut.

She whirled around. “What are you doing here?” Her blood pressure spiked as she recognized the golden-haired menace that had ruined her life.

"Just here to help with laundry. I’m always around the house, so it’s just natural that I help with chores.“

The basement was really more of closet. There was enough room for a washer and dryer and that was about it. So he and Patience were stuck very close, so close they could not help but touch as they unloaded the drier. His hand skimmed her breasts, bottom and back, all under the pretense of accidence.

"Stop it!” She snapped. “Just–just hold the basket!”

After she was done loading the clothes, she turned to the door, he held it shut with his arm. He stood there, face an inch from her own, staring intently. He cocked it. “Patience.”

For some reason she was afraid, even though he had no way of telling, that he had found out about her pregnancy. _He’s going to blackmail me. Just another way he has power over me._

“Why don’t you like me?”

She started. It sounded like an honest question. Maybe it was. “Because you’re sleeping with my mom and making her run around on my dad.”

“Hmm. Well, maybe that can change.” Leonardo hoped on top of the washing machine, staring down at her. “You really want me to stop fooling with your mother?”

“Yes, I do! Just leave her alone! Leave my whole family alone!”

“Well. Maybe we can come to an agreement.” He smiled, showing perfect white teeth. “How about this. I stop with your mother… and you take her place.”

She stood frozen, teeth gritted and body made of stone. “I–” and for a moment she thought, _then Mom and Dad will stay together. I’m pregnant, he can’t do anything to me like he was threatening to. Maybe just–just to keep him away from Mommy–_

He took her by the arm and pulled her forward. “My father is very rich. I’m going to Yale next year. I’m an even an Altar Boy at The Church of the Holy Virgin

That boyfriend of yours is no-good and you know. I can buy you anything you want, get you a house, take you to Europe.”

He sounded like he was giving her more of a sales pitch than asking her to be his lover. She studied him closely, at his fine, delicate features, his high cheekbones and arched nose and long eyelashes. Could she wake up beside him? 

She just focused on his features, trying to ignore everything else about the boy, all her memories of the way he had slammed her against the wall and forced his way into her, about how her mommy looked at him with adoring eyes, on the disgusting words he had whispered in her ears that fateful night, and just focused on those blue, blue eyes.

He leaned down slowly, giving her time to pull away, and cupped her face. When his mouth was a fraction away from hers, and his breath was spilling over her lips, she yanked away, her gorge rising. 

“Get lost, Borghese. I’m never going to be your girl,” she snarled resentfully, her bitterness taking over as she carried the basket of laundry out of the basement.

***

“Well, hey there, Pat. Haven’t seen you around lately.”

Jack Salandra was sitting outside the butcher shop in a folding chair, smoking a cigarette.

“Do you know where Salvatore is?”

“He’s in the back talking to someone.”

“I need to speak with him.”

“He’s busy. You should come back in an hour, I think he’ll be closing up.”

“No. You don’t understand. I REALLY need to speak with him.”

Something in her trembling voice gave him pause, and he put out his cigarette and stood up. “Give me a minute.”

Soon after, Sal emerged, looking livid. His butcher’s apron was stained with blood. “What the fuck is your problem? First we go to the prom together. Then you ghost me for a whole month, leaving me wondering what the hell happened to you. And now you’re showing up at my door begging to talk to me?”

She swallowed hard and looked down the street. “It’s… it’s really, really important. Is there somewhere where we can be alone?”

He led her to an alleyway behind the butcher shop, occupied only by a dumpster where she assumed spoiled meat was dumped because of the smell.

She took a deep breath, skin prickling, and when she spoke the words, the shocked silence was so loud it buzzed in her ears.

“I’m pregnant.”

Salvatore’s face settled into a blank look of shock. His eyes were so wide around his black iris that it was ringed by white.

“A-are you sure?”

“Yeah. My mom had the same symptoms when she was pregnant with me. And it’s–the timeline adds up. I know… it’s yours, Salvatore.”

Salva slowly sank to the ground, shaking. “Oh fuck. Oh fuck. This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening. _Vaffanculo…"_ and he began to sob.

Him crying make her start to cry too, but she lashed back. "What are you crying for? You’re not the one who’s pregnant!”

He wiped his tears off with his bloody apron.

Patience felt the weight of despair crush her, a woman barely into her teens and saddled with the child of the last person she’d want to be pregnant by. How could she finish high school now? What would her parents say? Did she have to get married? She didn’t want to marry Salvatore. She wanted to go to college and be a police officer like her father. How could she do that with a child, and married to someone she’d more likely arrest than not? He smoked. He skipped school. He hit her. That 'bad boy’ image he gave off that had so charmed her at first now alienated her, disgusted her. How could she marry someone like that? 

Life was going too fast for her. She wanted this to be a nightmare she would wake up from.

“What are we gonna do, Salvatore?" 

"I gotta tell my mom. Fuck, she’s gonna kill me. It’s all over. You better tell your parents too.”

The thought of introducing Sal as the father of her child made her feel sick. She often hated how long the walk back to her house from the butcher shop was, but this time, she wished it were longer. Every step she took was weighted down by concrete blocks.

When her two-story green townhome came in sight, her heart began to pound. When she pulled the door open, she saw her father in a sweater, reading the news, and her mom watching television.

When her father saw her, he got up to hug her. She hugged her father, inhaling his familiar smell. She never wanted to let go. 

“I’m sorry I’ve been away for so long, baby. Work’s been rough. But the Chief is giving me some time off this week. What do you say you, your mom and I do something this weekend? Go to an amusement park? See a movie?”

_Oh, daddy. If only you knew._

“That sounds good, Daddy.” She kept the sob out of her voice, but it welled up again as she sat down beside her dad to watch TV. Harry Truman was giving a speech. Every single word out of his mouth might as well have been gibberish.

“Honey, have you been crying?” Mommy looked up. She was in her favorite dress, the red gingham one. Patience remembered her wearing it a lot as a child. Her apron was smeared, like she had just been cooking.

"Are you all right? Did Mr. Oleson yell at you again? Tell your mommy.“

"No.” She wiped her eyes. “I–I–I need to, talk, to you. About something?”

“What is it, junebug?” Daddy looked down at her, worry knitting his brow. His green eyes, just like hers, were filled with concern as more tears streaked down her face.

“I’m–” her voice caught in her throat like a stone. “I’m pregnant.”

For a moment, all she heard was Harry Truman’s voice crackling through the speakers.

Then two things happened.

Her father leaped up and started shouting, and her mother began to sob.

“You’re fifteen years old! _You are fifteen years old!_ How did you let this happen?”

“No, no, oh god, please no, Patience–”

“How could you ruin your life like this? You were going to college! You’re on the honor roll! How, how could you be so–” Richard was shouting, red in the face, and he took her by her shoulders and shook her.

“How did it happen? Who did it? How old is he? Was he your teacher?” Mommy was still crying, but she got her questions rapid-fire.

“No,” she managed to get out between sobs. “I-It wasn’t. He–was–he’s in my high school. He works at the butcher shop around the corner, the one on Franklin Lane. He–his name is S-Salvatore Mallozzi.”

The room went silent again, the calm before a storm, and then the storm crashed down.

“SALVATORE MALLOZZI? I arrested that boy for assault and theft! He spat in my face! You’re telling me that you let him–" Richard was shaking hard, and Patience wondered whether he would collapse. He was gripping her shoulders so hard they erupted in pain.

Mommy had lapsed into crying again, except this time, more desperately. When she spoke again, her voice was a scream. She slapped her errant daughter so hard her face exploded with pain. "Why are you acting the whore? Where’s your common sense? I thought you would have learned from your Aunt Minnie! A dago? Why did you let some FUCKING Italian–”

“You’re one to talk!” She shouted back, holding her aching cheek. Her fury and agony was bursting, making her lash out. “What with you and Leonardo!”

The moment she let those words leave her lips, she regretted it more than anything in her life.

Her daddy loosened her arms, slowly, and turned to his wife. “Marilyn,” he said, his voice sapped of emotion.

Mommy looked like a deer caught in the headlights. “I was going to tell you,” she whispered.

He sat down, shaken and pale. “Why?” He asked simply. “Why Silvio’s son?”

“You were never here,” she said. “He was. He told me I was beautiful. He–” she stopped and looked away. “I know I can’t explain it to you. I know nothing I can say would explain it. But it’s so lonely without you.”

Richard said nothing, but buried his face in his hands. 

Patience sat, frozen, aware distantly of her life crumbling around her. She felt like she was floating above the room, looking down at a bunch of strangers.

“Richard,” Mommy said, “I’m leaving you. And I’m taking Patience.”

_This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening._

Richard walked over to the liquor cabinet and pulled out a bottle of amber liquid. He chugged his first few swallows straight from the bottle. Then he took a crystal glass and poured a generous amount in it.

Harry Truman was talking about the Soviet Union.

The three sat in absolute silence, the only sound the clinks of Daddy’s glass and the occasional sniff of Mommy’s.

How much time had passed, she did not know, but Daddy finally drained his glass and sat up before making his way purposefully to the door.

Patience jumped. “Daddy, where are you going?”

He did not answer, but she had a forboding feeling she knew, so she followed him out of the door.

Richard took step after step, and although he was staggering drunk, his mind was laser-focused on one thing. He ignored his daughter’s pleas as he headed for the one place Patience feared–the butcher shop.

As soon as it came within sight she seized his arm, but he shook her off like a fly. One hundred and fifty pounds of Massachusetts rage bulled his way into the butcher shop.

Salvatore was sitting at a table, holding an icepack to his cheek. Opposite him was Malone, and a smattering of other undesirables. Richard marched up to the table and decked Salvatore.

The crack was louder than anything in the room, and Salvatore was flung backwards onto the floor. Richard was shouting drunkenly, drowning out the pleas of Malone.

“Winslow! Calm yourself! The boy’s mother is crying in the next room!”

“YOU FUCKING DIRTY CRIMINAL WOPS–”

“Winslow! Winslow! The boy has agreed to marry the girl, there nothing to be upset about!”

“As if I would let my daughter marry one of you people! Patience is fifteen! I have my handcuffs here and I am arresting him and taking him to jail! I’m putting him away on statutory rape charges!”

Salvatore had scrambled back on his hands and knees and had his back against the wall, trembling with blood pouring down his face. Malone was in front of him, blocking him from Richard’s wrath.

“Daddy,” Patience pleaded, hanging onto him. “Please stop this, let’s talk, please stop yelling–”

He shook her off, knocking her a few steps back. “My daughter,” he snarled. “Is not marrying that boy. She is going to an unwed mother’s home, and when the baby is adopted, she is coming back and _she is finishing her education._ Put the _god damn_ handcuffs on!”

He lunged forward, and Malone pulled a bat out from behind the counter. They clashed with the thud of wood on skin.

Patience sat there, sobbing quietly as her father fought fiercely, throwing punches and shouts against weapons.

And as the other people in the butcher shop closed in, she didn’t want to see her daddy beaten within an inch of his life **,** so she backed out of the butcher shop, her shoulders against the glass.

She ran home, the sky waning on her and the sky beginning to warm with orange on the horizon. Each thudding step she took jolted her to her brain.

The home she saw looked alien now–it held no comfort for her. When she pushed in, heaving her breaths, her mommy was on the phone. She heard the word _Leo._

When she came inside, her mommy put down the phone and looked up. She opened her mouth to say something, but said nothing.

Patience stood there silently. 

Surveying the wreckage of her life and the ways it would go from now on, she made the wisest decision of her short life.

***

Patience shoved handfuls of her clothes into her suitcase, breaths trembling and frantic. She stopped by her parents’ room and swept the emergency money in the bedside drawer into her suitcase.

She clicked the suitcase shut and ran downstairs, her shoes thudding on the steps. Her mother met her in the living roo, saw her suitcase, and she panicked. “Where are you going, Patience?”

“Away. I’m going away, mommy, I’m leaving, and I’m not coming back.”

Marilyn seized her daughter’s arm. “Don’t do this, Patience! Don’t do this! Please, come with me, don’t leave me alone!”

“Why’d you do it, Mommy?” All Patience wanted to do was bury her face in her mother’s skirt and cry. She wanted to be a little girl again, when her parents loved each other and her.

“You don’t know what it’s like. You know your daddy is never here. I had to raise you by myself. You think he’s the hero? You know why he’s gone so often? So he doesn’t have to deal with the responsibility. I’m lonely, Patience. And I’ve been alone ever since I had you. I’m fed up with it.”

“But why did it have to be _him?”_

Her mother said nothing, but there were tears in her eyes too, and an enormous unsaid weight between them.

Patience looked at the face that was so like hers, the tiny nose, the heart-shaped face, the pink lips. 

“I love you, Mommy. But you made your choice. And I can’t stay here. I will not live with that man. I’m not going to an unwed mother’s home. And I’m not marrying Salvatore, either.”

She pushed past her mother, into the road, and chose a direction and started running, away from a broken home she would never return to.

***

Patience walked down the highway, thumb sticking out. Car after car passed her until a rattling sedan with a loose license plate slowed down. “Are you looking for a lift?” Called the driver.

The car was in such bad shape she almost refused, but the sun was going down and she needed a ride before nightfall. “Sure.”

She put her suitcase in the backseat and hopped in the front seat. As soon as she slamed the door, the sedan was rattling off down the highway.

The driver was a young man in an ill-fitting gray suit and tie. He had slicked-back blond hair that was graying along the temples, despite his youth. “Where are you headed?" 

"Just outside of town. What about you?”

He laughed bitterly. “Garland City Courthouse. I’m divorcing my wife. You know what the real ironic thing is? I’m actually an attorney. A public defender. But because I don’t know jack about divorce proceedings, I had to hire my own. And I _really_ can’t afford to spend the money.”

The car coughed, like it was agreeing with him. “I’m sorry to hear that. Why did you split up?”

“Because she’s not satisfied with the money I make. She always wants new fur coats, new pearls, new nights on the town. Women are never satisfied. It’s always something with them.”

Patience had a distinct feeling that that was only half the story, but did not pursue it.

“I understand. My parents are leaving each other, too.”

“Is that why you’re out here all alone?”

She looked ahead as rain began to speckle the windshield. “Yeah. Well, that, and–” she thought of Salvatore, and the baby, and instinctively cupped her stomach. “Other reasons.”

“You should go back. I bet they’re worried stiff. If my son disappeared on me, I’d lose my mind. Of course, he’s only two, so there’s not a lot of places he could go.”

Patience thought of her mother, lost, staying up nights worrying desperately about her daughter. About her father, coming back to an empty home without his wife and daughter. She rubbed her eyes. _I’m sorry, Mommy. I’m sorry, Daddy._

_I guess I was just too much of a coward to deal with this. So I ran away instead._

Then she thought of Salvatore, of what he would think, how he would wonder what happened to his child. Would he wonder? Or would he just be glad he didn’t have deal with the trouble anymore?

The night was beginning to fall, turning the sky blue-black. Patience spotted a bus stop through the shield of rain, right besside the sign stating _Robichaux National Forest._ "Drop me off here. I’ll catch a bus.“

The man slowed down. She hopped out and took her briefcase.

The man propped up his elbow on the steering wheel. "Which way are you headed, kid?”

She shielded her eyes against the rain. The trees towered above her like black, watching sentinels.

“California,” she said. “Yeah. California sounds good.” Somewhere far, far away, as far as she could get. “Thanks a lot, mister. I never got your name.”

“Charlie Sawyer.” He shook her hand. “And you?”

On the spur of a moment, she chose a false name, one that, considering who she was talking to, spared her a lot of suffering. “Beth Evans.”

“Well, Beth. Best of luck to you.”

“Thanks. Best of luck to you too, Charlie.”

Patience watched his blinking tail lights vanish into the darkness, and sat down in the sanctuary of the bus stop, waiting for the rain to stop.

She slid her hand underneath her shirt and held it there, as if she could feel the heartbeat of her unborn child.

_It’s just you and me now, baby. Just us, in this big bad world._

The rain poured down harder, as if it would never stop.


	17. Deleted Scene--Leonardo's Mansion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If periods gross you out you may want to skip this one.

Patience woke up hurting and miserable, which was no a unique experience. But this time it was different. Her womb hurt. For a moment she wondered whether Leonardo had done something reprehensible to her last night–something she couldn’t eve dream of–but then she peeled her covers back and saw the mass of blood between her legs and felt sweeping relief. Relief for several things–that he hadn’t damaged her, and he hadn’t gotten her pregnant.

She had never been so grateful for the aching pain in her belly.

“Are you awake?” That soft, hateful voice sounded in her ears, and she looked up to see Leonardo at the door. “I’m making scrambled eggs again. I know how much you like them.”

“I’m not hungry this morning,” she said, drawing her covers over herself.

“You need to eat. So small, you are.”

“I feel sick.”

“Dolcezza. What ails you?” His voice quirked in a parody of worry, and he approached her. He was dressed in his usual attire for around the house–loose white dress shirt and black slacks. She edged away from him as he sat on the bed beside her.

“I’m–” Leonardo had seen and tasted every inch of her body, but she still had that shyness every woman has when she has to admit it. “I’m… having woman troubles.”

He blinked once, then his face settled into realization. “Your cycle? I see.”

She turned away from him and buried her face in the pillow. He lay down next to her, his warm body depressing the bed.

As he slid his hands around her waist, she panicked and pushed him off. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Language,” he replied softly, and she quieted out of fear. Her hand still ached where he had buried the knife into it, and she couldn’t even flex it anymore. “I’m just here to help you. A woman’s monthlies are a painful time… I know how to alleviate it. A man must always attend to his woman in her time of need.”

She was still nervy as he slid his arms around her waist, warm hands pressing and moving against the small of her back like he was kneading dough.

The movements did, indeed, cause the pain to lessen, and she let out a sigh as the aches began to retreat. “Do you feel better?” He murmured in her ear.

Her eyelids drooped. “Yes…”

“I know an even better way to make it go away.” She heard the rustling of his clothes and her eyes snapped open.

“No–what are you doing? I’m bleeding–”

“There’s nothing shameful about a woman’s monthlies. It’s something to be celebrated. It means you’re fertile and ready to conceive again.” He purred against her nape as he shifted his waist against her. She felt the throbbing tip of his cock enter shallowly between her lower lips.

She knew what the clinging wetness to it was. “Haven’t you humiliated me enough?”

“Didn’t you hear me? I’m being a dutiful lover.” And then he was inside her, fully, his throbbing hot member seated deeply inside her. She gasped at the sudden penetration, and tried to wriggle away as he started to move.

He wrapped his strong arms about her from behind, holding her firmly in place. His cock began to shorten move slowly, feeling every inch of her tender, sensitive insides, and she could feel every one of his veins pulsing inside her.

His soft golden hair brushed her shoulders as he gave her nape a deep kiss. “Turn around.”

“Wh–”

“Only dogs mate like this. I want to look into your eyes.”

He shifted her, and then they were face to face in bed, his blue eyes staring into her own an inch away. His body kept moving, shuddering in and out of her, and her hypersensitive insides were beginning to respond. Her breath started to shorten and her face started to flush.

Leonardo noticed, and a secretive smile crept across his face as he increased his thrusts. The feeling of fullness, the largeness of him inside her, made her back arch. Something was building up inside her, something was reaching a peak, and she clenched down on him hard as he gave his last thrust, heavy, hot waves of pleasure exploding through her body.

He stayed where he was, holding her close, his sweet smell enveloping her and his breath washing over her face. Then he kissed her chastely. “How do you feel? Do you feel any better?”

She was coming down off her high, and she had to admit, the pain was gone, even for a moment. “Y-yes. I feel much better.”

“I told you,” he laughed. “I’ll take care of you. You won’t want for anything living with me.”

He extricated himself from the bedclothes, which were awash with blood. “You might want to take a quick bath before you come to breakfast. I will certainly do so.”

As he left, Patience was left alone in her bloody sheets, staring down at the mess of white semen and red, warm, sticky blood between her thighs. The pain was a distant memory.

All she could think of was how humiliated she was.

**Author's Note:**

> Imported from the tumblr upon request.


End file.
